TWO KO'D AS MANHOLE FUMES SEEP INTO APTS.

March 19, 2007 -- Deadly doses of poisonous carbon monoxide spewing from a burning Con Ed manhole nearly killed two women after it spread across a sidewalk and seeped into their Brooklyn homes yesterday.
The potentially lethal fumes sickened seven other people and forced some 300 residents into the streets for hours, fire officials said.
The two seriously injured women were found unconscious by firefighters going door to door along 55th Street in Sunset Park.
One of them was found in a brownstone basement; the other in the third-floor apartment of another building.
At least one resident insisted the fire had burned for 12 hours before Con Ed took steps to put it out, a claim the utility denied.
Con Ed spokeswoman Joy Faber could not say why so much carbon monoxide was emitted without it being detected earlier, and declined to comment on whether the thousands of manholes monitored by the utility pose an ongoing risk to New Yorkers .
Fire Battalion Chief William Tanzosh said the toxic fumes in some locations on the affected streets topped 133 times the safe level for carbon-monoxide emissions.
Among the seven people sickened were two FDNY paramedics, who rescued the two unconscious women shortly after receiving a 911 call at around noon.
"The only reason the unconscious people were found this quickly was because of [a 911 caller] who had a carbon-monoxide detector," Tanzosh said.