Teachers and business owner who died of carbon monoxide poisoning at Mexico City Airbnb brought light to those around them, families say
This story originally appeared in the Detroit Free Press
When Pedro, who wanted to be known only by his first name, was ready for bed around 7:30 on an evening in August, he turned off the gas and heater, grabbed his pajamas and went to bed.
Around 8:30, he was asleep, but he jerked awake when a dark wave of fear washed over him from his cellphone.
“Don’t touch my cellphone, it’s hot,” the 26-year-old told his mother, who was in the living room next to his. She yelled at him to shut up, and called 911.
The 911 operator asked him to stay where he was.
The caller was a neighbor in Mexico City, where he and his boyfriend, a construction worker who lived outside the city, were planning to stop to say goodbye to their friends.
At the time, the couple were attending the wedding of friends at the same restaurant where they had gone to celebrate his birthday the year before.
They planned a week-long trip through Mexico, and were staying at an upscale hotel, along with other guests, who were staying there for the night.
At about 4:30 a.m. on Aug. 7, they decided to stay at the hotel’s restaurant, where they were staying. At 6:30, just before they were to go to bed, Pedro started to hear banging in his room, then saw an “indescribable darkness”.
“He turned on the light, and at that point he said he could see some black stains,” his mother, Yolanda, said, recalling what the family later learned was carbon monoxide poisoning.
“He told me what he saw was actually a form of light, but they were black circles,” she said. “His eyes were completely shut.”
By morning, he, like everyone else in the hotel, was breathing heavily, his family said.
Pedro went to sleep at about 8:30 a.m., but woke up at 10:45
