Police in several states are claiming carbon monoxide is poisoning officers. All the claims have one thing in common, they drive the Ford Interceptor or Explorer.
41 Action News found out the problem is even happening in the Kansas area.
"We had about 20 vehicles in our fleet that went into the shop to get exhaust manifolds replaced,” said Captain Joseph Bott with the Kansas Highway Patrol.
Bott told KSNW troopers working at Turnpike locations have gotten sick.
"We just had one the other day after this story came out that someone wanted to get checked, wanted to have their car checked," said Bott.
The Johnson County Sheriff's Office has 34 Ford cars in their fleet. None of their deputies have reported getting sick but as a precaution, they are installing carbon monoxide monitors inside every vehicle.
"It is always good to have precautionary steps, the small costs to have these cards in their cars are worth it to protect the lives of these deputies that are in the vehicles,” said Johnson County Deputy Clair Canaan.
They’re also swapping out what they drive.
"We are working on transitioning our entire fleet to the Ford Explorer,” said Canaan.
In response, Ford says they have investigated and detected no issues with the design of the Interceptor model – and that police departments modify the cars, which could affect the exhaust in the vehicle.
We also talked with the Overland Park Police Department. They haven’t had any issues, but like the Johnson County Sheriff’s Office, they also installed CO2 monitors just in case.
