COPENHAGEN — Charles R. Fanning didn't expect to spend much of the afternoon on Thanksgiving Day in the emergency room.

However, that's exactly what happened after the Republican Lewis County legislator and four family members were exposed to carbon monoxide at his 3525 Deer River Road home.

"We were in the hospital from 3 to 6," Mr. Fanning told his fellow legislators during a budget work session Friday.

Exhaust from a generator running outside was found to be entering the house through an open basement window, and the house had no carbon monoxide detectors.

Mr. Fanning said that when he started the generator after losing power Thursday, it never entered his mind that the exhaust fumes would enter the residence instead of dissipating into the air. And nobody noticed the odorless gas until one of his young grandchildren began to vomit and have seizures and others began feeling faint.

Fortunately, power had been restored by then, so the telephone — which requires electrical service to operate — could be used to call 911, Mr. Fanning said.

"I've got to give them credit," he said of dispatchers, noting they immediately recognized symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning.

Mr. Fanning also commended members of Lewis County Search and Rescue and Copenhagen Fire Department and county Emergency Medical Services Coordinator Mark J. Tuttle for their response.

The legislator said family members had a difficult time waking another of his grandchildren from sleep during the ordeal.

However, all are doing fine after receiving treatment, he said.

The Lowville Fire Department brought a carbon monoxide detection device to the Fannings.

Generators always should be run outside, with the exhaust vented away from buildings, Mr. Tuttle said. "And everyone should have a carbon monoxide detector," he said.

An estimated 15,000 U.S. residents are taken to emergency departments each year for treatment of carbon monoxide poisoning, while an average of 439 deaths are attributed to it, according to the Journal of the American Medical Association.

While Lewis County doesn't see an overabundance of such cases, two people were taken to the hospital last winter due to generator-induced carbon monoxide exposure at a cabin on Tug Hill, Mr. Tuttle said.