Woman Dies, Husband and Son Hospitalized After Gas Leak at Bucks County Home

A woman died while her adult son and husband were hospitalized from a gas leak at their Bucks County home. 

Susan Hess, 51, her 54-year-old husband and 31-year-old son were all inside their home on the 2000 block of Old Bethlehem Pike in Sellersville, Pennsylvania, on Wednesday around 4 p.m. when gas began to leak.

The Hess' other son arrived at the home and smelled the gas.

"He forced entry in the house and found his parents and his brother inside the house," Pennridge Regional Police Chief Paul Dickinson Jr. said. "He was able to remove his brother and his mother and father out of the house."

Hess was pronounced dead at the scene. Her husband and youngest son were both rushed to St. Luke's Hospital in Bethlehem. On Thursday, police said they were "transferred to Jacobi Hospital in the Bronx New York for hyperbaric oxygen therapy due to their carbon monoxide levels."

Police credited Hess' other son with saving their lives.

"If the other son had not gone to the house to make contact with his parents it probably would have turned out much worse than it turned out to be," Dickinson said.

Responding firefighters shut off the gas meter and also ventilated the home. The Hess' neighbor, Franceis Allen, told NBC10 she could smell the gas from her front porch.

"When we came and opened the windows and the doors up we stood out here talking and we started smelling the gas," Allen said.

While it's still early in the investigation, police believe a faulty appliance was to blame.

"It appears it was a faulty appliance inside the house and not anything that would have been caused by an outside source," Dickinson said.

Officials continued to investigate Thursday to pinpoint the exact reason for the elevated CO levels in the home.