A Kelowna mother and nurse is advocating for carbon monoxide detectors in all Okanagan schools. 

Tanya Miles says her biggest concern is gas in portables like those at her children’s Casorso Elementary School.

“The worst thing that could happen is that a child could die, be poisoned or have permanent damage,” she said. 

Carbon monoxide poisoning happens when the odourless gas mixes and binds with hemoglobin in the blood. This results in less oxygen getting sent to the brain and heart. 

The parent advisory council member says she has received support for the idea.

She says the detectors should be mandatory in all schools. 

“We’ve been asking questions, and what we have learned is that because there are no sleeping (quarters) in the school, it is not mandatory,” she said. 

School District 23 secretary-treasurer Eileen Sadlowski says plans are in the works to get the detectors in all portables. 

“We comply with all the building code requirements, and our ... systems do have monitors within the school,” said Sadlowski. “Portables are outside of that.”

A team of Saskatchewan hockey players was taken to hospital on Saturday after a carbon monoxide buildup in an arena. And Carbon monoxide detectors are now mandatory in all Quebec educational institutes as of Friday, after a leak at a school that sent 35 children and eight adults to hospital.

“We are going about doing some investigation to what it would cost to purchase and install them in all of our portables,” said Sadlowski.

The hope is to have them installed by March 2019.

"(In) winter time, people have their furnaces blasting, so the instances are a lot higher,” said Kelowna Fire Department fire inspector Gayanne Pacholzuk. She says people should have detectors in their homes as well.

It would cost $10,000 to $20,000 to put them in all the school district's portable classrooms.