When planning a vacation, most travelers map out their itinerary in immense detail, pack more clothes than they’ll likely need, and research the safest neighborhoods and best bars and restaurants to visit.  

However, very few consider taking steps to safeguard themselves from carbon monoxide poisoning in their hotels or Airbnb rentals, and that, according to Kris Hauschildt, founder of the Jenkins Foundation, needs to change urgently. 

Hauschildt established the Jenkins Foundation after her parents, Daryl and Shirley Jenkins, died from carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning at a hotel in Boone, North Carolina, in April 2013. She now advocates for CO detector reform in the hotel and rental sectors and educates travelers on the dangers the ‘silent killer’ gas poses. 

CO poisoning claims the lives of more than 400 Americans each year and sickens over 100,000 others, data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows. 

What makes the gas so dangerous is how difficult it is to detect, Hauschildt told DailyMail.com.

Carbon monoxide has no odor, taste, or color. Symptoms of CO poisoning are almost as difficult to spot as the condition can often mimic other illnesses, such as the flu or food poisoning, which travelers are often reluctant to seek treatment for, Hauschildt added. 

Two suspected CO fatalities involving American tourists abroad have unfolded within just the last few weeks. 

Miller Gardner, the 14-year-old son of former New York Yankees star Brett Gardner, was found dead in a hotel room in Costa Rica last month in a tragedy local authorities have tentatively suggested bears the hallmarks of CO poisoning. 

Three women on vacation in San Pedro, Belize – Kaoutar Naqqad, 23, Imane Mallah, 24, and Wafae El Arar, 26 – were similarly found dead in their room at the Royal Kahal Beach Resort in late February, having succumbed to CO. 

Hauschildt said she is always anguished to learn of new carbon monoxide-related fatalities, adding it’s ‘heartbreaking to see this continue to happen when it’s so easily preventable.’

‘I’ve been following this issue for the last 12 years, and it’s such a misunderstood problem, and it’s something most travelers aren’t even aware of,’ she said. 

‘We have no human ability to detect the toxin itself, so we as travelers must educate ourselves on how to best protect against it wherever you travel, whether that’s to a hotel, a vacation rental, or even a relative’s home.’

Carbon monoxide poisoning occurs when CO fumes are inhaled in large quantities, starving the body of oxygen, which can cause damage to the brain, heart, and other vital organs. 

Typical side-effects include headaches, dizziness, blurred vision, vomiting, weakness, chest pain, and confusion. 

CO is produced from burning fuels, including gasoline, wood, propane, or charcoal, meaning accidental poisonings often caused by malfunctioning appliance systems like heaters, air conditioning units, and generators.

Victims are most vulnerable when they’re sleeping, Hauschildt said. 

In Miller Gardner’s case, local officials reported on Monday that a ‘machine room’ adjacent to the family’s hotel room had suffered an unknown contamination and tested positive for high concentrations of the gas.

The hotel has refuted the authorities’ findings, and Gardner’s family is waiting on a toxicology report to confirm the teenager’s cause of death. 

In Belize, officials said they believe the deaths of Naqqad, Mallah, and El Arar were caused by a malfunctioning water heater inside the women’s room. 

Two tourists who stayed at the Royal Kahal in the days after the three women were found dead, believe they were also sickened by CO and told DailyMail.com that – while relieved to have escaped the same grisly fate – they feel ‘stupid’ for not connecting the dots earlier and taking more evasive action to protect themselves.

Hauschildt said the best way to ensure your safety is to travel with a portable carbon monoxide detector, and familiarise yourself with the device before setting off on your trip. 

‘The only way to know you’re in the presence of carbon monoxide is with a detection device, so it’s essention you travel with one so you can be make aware, get out of the environment you’re in, and call 911, particularly if you’re in a public building, to prevent death and injury to anyone else.

‘We like to think that when we’re staying in hotels or other public buildings, that we’re safe and protections are already in place, but the lack of regulation for installing CO detectors is a huge problem, so it’s important to take fate into your own hands.’

Hauschildt added: ‘This really is a universal problem, and it needs to be recognized as a universal problem.

‘We need to stop treating this as though carbon monoxide behaves differently when it’s in a different kind of building. 

‘Carbon monoxide behaves very predictably, and the best remedy to thwart it is installing CO detection in the appropriate places – and enforcing those rules no matter where in the world they are.’ 

The two tourists who stayed at the Royal Kahal after the deaths of Naqqad, Mallah, and El Arar, who DailyMail.com is identifying under the pseudonyms ‘Jane’ and ‘Alice’, said they travelled with a CO detector but were unsure how to properly use it. 

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recommends keeping a portable detector near ‘sleeping areas’ within a hotel or rental property and ensuring the alarm is loud enough to wake you from your sleep. 

Hauschildt said, even if a hotel or rental has carbon monoxide detectors installed, it’s still important to bring your own abroad because the country of your destination may not have appropriate safety measures in place.

After the deaths of the three women in Belize made headlines back in the U.S., Jane and Alice reached out to the Royal Kahal, asking if it was still safe for them to stay at the beachfront resort. 

On February 25, a concerned Jane reached out to the hotel on Facebook asking, ‘Is it safe to come?’ messages shared with DailyMail.com show.

In response, a representative identified as ‘Daniel’ assured her there ‘are no safety issues’ at the Royal Kahal and the ‘sad incident’ involving Naqqad, Mallah, and El Arar was out of their control.

‘While we are still waiting on the authorities to formally release their findings, all signs indicate that this was a drug overdose,’ wrote Daniel.

‘As unfortunate as these circumstances are, there is nothing the hotel could’ve done to prevent these deaths.’

The hotel representative also assured Jane the Royal Kahal had smoke and CO detectors in every suite in the hotel, adding: ‘rest assured that you will have nothing to worry about in regard to your stay.’

Alice sent a similar note to the hotel but never received a response.  

The two women, along with a group of friends, decided to go ahead with the trip and arrived on the island of San Pedro on March 1 – one week after Naqqad, Mallah, and El Arar were found dead. 

Almost immediately, they realized something was off, Jane and Alice said. 

Though the staff were welcoming, there were signs plastered all over saying the hotel would be conducting smoke detector tests the following day between 9 am and 3 pm.

The women never heard any alarm tests being conducted, but when they returned home on the second day of their trip, they found that all of the smoke detectors inside their room had been removed from the wall. 

At the time, the investigations into the deaths of Naqqad, Mallah, and El Arar, were still ongoing, though local officials had publicly ruled out the possibility of CO poisoning, claiming initial tests found nothing untoward at the resort.

Curious as to why the detectors were removed, Alice called the front desk to ask whether they should reinstall them, but were told ‘no’ and instructed to leave them on the counter where they remained for the rest of their stay.

Then, on March 5th, and for the majority of the 6th, the gas and hot water were switched off. The gas was cut off for a second time on March 8th.

In light of what has happened since, the women believe the gas and water being shut off was an attempt by the hotel to get a handle on the dangerous CO levels present inside the resort that local authorities would later reportedly discover.

‘I really wish we’d questioned it more at the time, but we honestly weren’t thinking that anything was wrong,’ said Alice.

‘It was a nice hotel, and you don’t go on vacation thinking I’m not going to wake up the next day because of carbon monoxide poisoning or something weird. 

‘I mean, we already know not to drink the tap water or be careful eating certain foods along the street, so we weren’t completely naive. 

‘But we were told the hotel was the newest on the island, and had all of the most up-to-date stuff, and they charged so much for the suite, we just presumed it was safe.’

Five days into the trip, Jane suffered a scare. 

She awoke early in the morning to find her left leg had gone completely numb, and she was also experiencing dizziness, blurred vision, and a headache.

When she attempted to get up to go to the restroom, Jane said she collapsed to the floor where she stayed for almost 40 minutes, unable to move.

After, she spent the next three hours seated next to an open window before she was finally able to walk uninhibited again. 

Jane’s symptoms persisted for a week after she returned home, she claimed.

Alice and other friends on the trip were also experiencing strange symptoms, including blurred vision, fatigue, and recurring headaches – all of which are textbook signs of carbon monoxide poisoning. 

‘My symptoms weren’t as bad [as Jane’s], mine were mostly headaches and my blurred vision,’ said Alice.

‘It was so bad, I remember telling my husband I needed to find my glasses and he told me they were already on my face.’

It wasn’t until returning home, and in the wake of a series of reports by DailyMail.com, that the two women linked their symptoms to possible carbon monoxide poisoning. 

They just believed they were suffering from the usual fatigue that can come with traveling abroad and spending too much time in the sun. 

Alice had brought with her a portable carbon monoxide detector but said she was unsure how to use it, having not tested it out before they set off.

She kept the detector in her bedroom, which was situated the furthest away from the suite’s kitchen and water heater.

Alice said she was getting ready one morning when she looked down and said ‘three digits’ visible on the CO detector’s reader. 

‘I can’t remember if it was in the hundreds, two hundreds, or three hundreds, or what,’ said Alice.

‘But it was only after I got back home, unpacked my bag, and saw that it read 0 that I realized something had been wrong [at the hotel]. 

‘I feel so stupid now, because we should’ve known better. But we were told the other guests had died from an overdose, so we weren’t even thinking about carbon monoxide.’

It was a text message from the U.S. Embassy on March 7th, the last night of their trip, that really unnerved Jane, Alice, and their friends. 

The group had been out on a booze cruise around the island and returned to shore to a series of missed calls and a message urging them to call the embassy back ‘ASAP’.

A male friend called and was told that it was in ‘their best interest to leave the hotel and find somewhere else to stay for the night.’

When the male friend asked why, the embassy refused to elaborate, sharing only that it was in the best interests of their safety. 

Jane, Alice, and their group returned to the hotel to find several individuals wearing suits standing in the lobby of the hotel.

One of the individuals, who Jane believes was Royal Kahal’s general manager, informed them the hotel would be shutting down for the week – but they had the option to stay for their final night if they felt safe to do so.

Having been out drinking all day and with nowhere else to go at such short notice, the group decided to stay at the hotel.

They were the only guests on the property that night and flew back to the U.S. the next day.

Alice said she followed up with the embassy when she returned home and was informed that several of the hotel’s rooms were found to contain high levels of carbon monoxide.

The embassy declined to comment, referring DailyMail.com to local authorities who fielded multiple requests for comment. 

In the weeks since, a toxicology report has confirmed Naqqad, Mallah, and El Arar all died from acute pulmonary edema, a build-up of fluid in the lungs, that was triggered by a toxic exposure to carbon monoxide.

Local police believe a malfunctioning water heater in the women’s room caused their deaths.

Each of the women registered carbon monoxide saturation levels of around 60 percent. Saturation levels of 40 percent are enough to cause death.

In a statement to DailyMail.com, a spokesperson for Royal Kahal called the deaths an ‘isolated incident’ and shared the hotel has since reopened for business.

‘While the cause of this tragedy has not been officially released by authorities, we are hearing indications that the results of the toxicology report will point to carbon monoxide poisoning as the cause of death,’ the statement, dated March 26, read.

‘From the time this isolated tragedy was discovered, we have been taking all possible steps to ensure that the Resort is safe, and it has been reopened for guests since March 19. 

‘We have worked with the Belizean government, and authorities have conducted multiple careful assessments of every unit on the property. These assessments have found no further indication of dangerous levels of carbon monoxide in any of the units.

‘This tragedy has deeply affected all of us at the Royal Kahal Beach Resort. Our thoughts remain with the families and loved ones of the young women during this incredibly difficult time.’ 

The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in the women’s home state of Massachusetts is conducting a second autopsy on the three women, which remains ongoing. 

The hotel has not commented on Jane and Alice’s claims.

A review posted to the hotel’s TripAdvisor page also complained of ‘dangerously high’ levels of CO from a guest who stayed at the hotel in February. 

Jane and Alice say they feel incredibly lucky to have escaped with only minor symptoms, but their hearts break for the families of Naqqad, Mallah, and El Arar. 

Their hearts also break for Miller Gardner’s family.

‘It’s just all so tragic,’ said Jane.