‘My son is gone’: Boy, 11, dead after carbon monoxide leak at Regina apartment building

A carbon monoxide leak at an Albert Street apartment building has claimed the life of an 11-year-old child. Jacob Carr reports.

The parents of Henry Losco are searching for answers after the 11-year-old lost his life Friday night due to a carbon monoxide leak in the family’s apartment building in downtown Regina.

Henry’s father, Sergio Losco, and mother, Marina Hills, both told CTV News that a carbon monoxide alarm did not go off during the incident.

“I don’t know if there were any other alarms that went off on some of the other floors or if there was an alert or if anybody can check for the other apartments and now my son is gone, and I need to know why,” Sergio said.

Hills recounted coming home to the family’s apartment on the 1800 block of Albert Street after picking up a turkey Friday night. When she entered the apartment, she discovered Sergio on the floor, struggling to breathe, before she found Henry in his room.

Hills went on to say that through sheer will she was able to get Henry out of the apartment and into the hallway where she started CPR, while shouting for someone to call 911.

A neighbour heard her shouting and called 911 before Hills went back into the apartment and pulled Sergio out.

Emergency responders arrived within minutes and deemed the building unsafe before evacuating all tenants.

Henry was pronounced dead at the scene and Sergio and Hills were taken out of the building. Hills said it was a few hours before she was let back in.

“There were about seven or eight police, and they just sat in the hallway, and they all cried. Oh they all cried. And I just told them how beautiful my son was, and I kissed him, and I kissed him, and I couldn’t stop kissing him. So, they let me say goodbye to him. And then I escorted them out and they took Henry. His name is Henry Benjamin Losco, and he was only 11 years old.”

Regina Fire Chief Layne Jackson said the investigation into the incident is ongoing. However, the cause of the leak was found to be a piece of service equipment that was being repaired at the time.

“The investigators and some technical experts are still examining very carefully that piece of equipment just to determine what failed with it and the nature of that failure,” Jackson explained.

Hills say she will not be going back to their apartment building, and that the family had just moved to Regina from St. Johns, Newfoundland less than three weeks ago.

She also said the doctors at Regina General Hospital are concerned that Sergio may have brain and heart damage due to carbon monoxide poisoning.

“I don’t know where I’m going to go. I have to try to bury my son, and they want me to pick a funeral home, and I don’t even know which one to pick and I’m just trying to get Sergio better because he has a fever and they’re afraid that he’s developing pneumonia because he’s got so much vomit in his lungs,” Hills explained.

“So, I’m just trying to get him better and then we don’t have a place to go. We have no home, and I just don’t know what to do. But I have to figure it out somehow.”

-With files from Connor Chan