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2 people taken to hospital following carbon monoxide leak at Tampa apartment complex

Firefighters found a generator that had been running since the night before.

TAMPA, Fla. — Tampa Fire Rescue says 12 units of a Tampa apartment complex were evacuated and searched following a carbon monoxide leak Friday morning.

Rescue crews say they were dispatched just after 10:45 a.m. to The Oaks at Riverview Apartments where a man was found unconscious and unresponsive in his second-floor apartment.

As responders treated the man and began removing him from the building, they say they smelled a "heavy odor of exhaust" in the area. This led them to call a hazmat response team while they searched the building for other people.

Hazmat crews measured high levels of carbon monoxide in the building and evacuated 12 units in the three-story building, according to the department.

Firefighters say a generator, which had been running since the night before, was found in one of the units on the first floor while another generator was found on the opened balcony of a third-floor unit.

Two people were transported to the hospital where one remains in critical condition. The second person is said to be stable.

Three others were monitored for symptoms but refused treatment or transport, according to the department.

Firefighters say they ventilated the building floor-by-floor until no carbon monoxide readings were present.

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