‘Silent killer’: Metro Vancouver woman raises awareness about carbon monoxide poisoning

Jessica Taschner and Steve LaTorre were looking forward to a few days of swimming and sunshine at her family’s cabin near Ruby Lake on the Sunshine Coast.

But two days later, LaTorre was dead and Taschner had to be airlifted to hospital, victims of carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning from a propane-run refrigerator.

Now Taschner is speaking out to raise awareness about the invisible, odorless gas that’s been described as a “silent killer.”

“It’s my way to honour Steve, and not to have someone else die when something is so preventable,” said Taschner, 31, a NICU nurse at B.C. Children’s Hospital.

Taschner and LaTorre met at that cabin in their early teens. She spent summers there with her family, in the cabin her grandparents had built in the 1950s, while LaTorre vacationed at a friend’s nearby cabin.