After wedding disaster . . . lawsuits?

Guests of a disastrous wedding on April 6 that resulted in their hospitalization for possible carbon monoxide poisoning are considering legal options as they learn more details about the gas leak and possible negligence by the owners of the wedding venue.
The couple, George Quenneville, 28, and Sharon Strack, 22, had scheduled their wedding reception at Dante Caterers, located at 75-07 31st Avenue in East Elmhurst, but ended their celebration after only a few hours when guests began to succumb to exposure to the noxious gas.
The bride and 42 wedding guests — including the couple’s four-year-old daughter and the groom’s mother — were transported to several area hospitals, said a Fire Department of the City of New York (FDNY) spokesperson, adding that two guests were listed in serious condition.
The cause of the carbon monoxide leak was either a stove or a dryer located inside the building, he said.
FDNY officials confirmed that carbon monoxide concentrations reached as high as 500 parts per million (ppm) inside the dining hall - they consider concentrations above nine ppm potentially hazardous exposure. A New York State Department of Health web site on carbon monoxide poisoning recommends that indoor air levels for carbon monoxide be kept below an average of nine ppm for any eight-hour period, and below 35 ppm for any one-hour period.
The concentrations of the invisible, odorless gas may have risen to dangerous concentration levels well before the wedding reception started. Judy Sands and Darren Daily, DJs at the event, arrived at the dining hall around 4 p.m. to set up music equipment before the affair was scheduled to begin approximately an hour later. Sands recalled feeling “weird, nauseous and dizzy” as early as 4:30 p.m., while Daily also began experiencing nausea and headaches.
None of the wedding guests suspected anything until the groom’s mother fell down on the dance floor around 8 p.m. with a gray pallor on her face. “She was the proverbial canary in the coal mine,” said Sands. “After her, one of the bridesmaids passed out in the bathroom and one of her teeth punctured her lower lip.”
Firemen arrived at the dining hall around 8:15 p.m. and evacuated the building after determining the elevated levels of carbon monoxide with a portable detector. According to witnesses, the dining hall was not equipped with carbon monoxide detectors. The owners of Dante Caterers did not respond to requests for information about the facilities.
“After everyone was outside, they were complaining about feeling unwell and they stood around in a kind of zombie state,” said Sands. Her husband, Russell Sands, who arrived at the event at 7 p.m. after working as a DJ at another event, suffered relatively little carbon monoxide exposure and was able to herd many of the guests to paramedics for oxygen therapy.
Due to the variations in indoor air and individuals’ reactions to carbon monoxide, it would be difficult to determine whether a person faced dangerous exposure levels without performing laboratory tests, said Dr. Michael Touger, Associate Director of the Emergency Department at Jacobi Medical Center. He confirmed that initial tests on the bride and groom did not indicate they were suffering from severe carbon monoxide poisoning. They were able to return home shortly after the tests.
The Sands, who helped the couple with their wedding plans, insisted that the city conduct “a full investigation of the hall.”
After all, they said, working anywhere without carbon monoxide detectors is like “getting on an airplane, but without any emergency exits.”