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COMPILED AND FORMATTED BY Kelly Courtney-Blizzard KELLYGIRL3398@MPINET.NET Copyright 2000 Kelly Courtney-Blizzard KELLYGIRL3398@MPINET.NET **************************************************************************** ARTIST, WIFE KILLED BY CARBON MONOXIDE; NEW HAVEN COUPLE IGNORED WARNINGS August 22, 1995 Obituary: They declined to be hospitalized, and they ignored the advice of medical personnel who told them they could be at risk of carbon-monoxide poisoning. Instead, artist C. W. Vittitow, 60, and his wife, Louise, 48, of New Haven, Ky., chose to sleep another night with their two dogs in their recreational vehicle. They never woke up. Investigators think a faulty exhaust pipe in the generator running their air-conditioning and electrical system killed them. Autopsies were being performed yesterday, one day after the couple and their dogs were found dead inside the vehicle they had parked at a shopping center in Jamestown, Tenn., which is on U.S. 127 south of Albany, Ky. Fentress County, Tenn., Sheriff Frank Officer said the Vittitows died after going to bed late Friday night. The news shocked people in Nelson County, Ky., where "Charlie" Vittitow was well-known as the artist who produced popular paintings of My Old Kentucky Home, pairs of mules, Kentucky Derby scenes and views of Louisville in the 1800s. His work had been sold at My Old Kentucky Home State Park and the Kentucky Derby Museum, as well as at a Bardstown gallery, JoDan's. The news also upset one of the last people in Tennessee to talk to the couple. "I feel real bad about it. I've had maybe an hour's sleep" since Sunday, said Harold Hatfield, captain of the Fentress County Volunteer Rescue Squad. "I wish they had listened to me." The couple reportedly began feeling nauseated Friday afternoon. They had pulled off U.S. 127 to eat sandwiches while visiting the annual multistate yard sale along that highway. They drove to a nearby house in Pall Mall, Tenn., pulled their motor home into the driveway and asked a woman there to call for help. Two ambulances took them to the nearest hospital, Fentress County General in Jamestown. There, Officer said, an emergency-room doctor ordered blood tests to determine whether the couple suffered from food poisoning or carbon-monoxide poisoning. The blood had to go to a lab in Nashville, and the doctor recommended that the Vittitows stay overnight for observation, Officer said. But they refused and asked to be taken back to their camper. Hospital administrator Curtis Courtney confirmed that account yesterday. "It's truly a dilemma," Courtney said. "You can't slap them in restraints and sedate them, . . . so you do your best to explain why they should stay." Hatfield said the sheriff's office asked him to give the Vittitows a lift. As he drove them back to Pall Mall, he said, he asked them to let him drive them all the way back to New Haven. Vittitow told Hatfield they could get home by themselves. Hatfield said he persisted because it was obvious to him that they were still feeling ill. But they continued to refuse. Hatfield said he then urged the Vittitows to at least have the RV checked before driving home. But they seemed mostly concerned about getting back to their dogs, which were still in the camper, Hatfield said. The dogs seemed fine, he said. Friends in Nelson County said the childless couple doted on their dogs and took them everywhere in the RV, which they'd had for a few years. Louise Vittitow had even knitted several sweaters for her Maltese. Hatfield said the last thing Charlie Vittitow said to him was: "I thank you a thousand times. We're going home." But they didn't go home. Instead, they headed south, back into Jamestown, where they pulled into a Wal-Mart shopping center and parked for the night in an out-of-the-way spot. Saturday, the Pall Mall woman whom the Vittitows originally contacted happened to go to the shopping center and saw the camper, but she thought things were fine. When the RV was still there Sunday, she called police, Officer said. He said investigators found a corroded exhaust pipe on the generator, which they think let carbon monoxide seep inside the camper. The blood work ordered by the hospital came back Saturday. It showed that both Vittitows had toxic amounts of carbon monoxide in their blood. The levels found would have made the couple feel like they had the flu and some neurological problems before sending them into comas, medical officials said. "This is quite a shock for this community," Courtney, the hospital administrator, said yesterday. ". . . This is terrible." - Charlie Vittitow was a native of Nelson County and an Army veteran. Louise Vittitow was a native of Benham in Harlan County and an employee of the arts and crafts department at New Haven Community Pharmacy. He is survived by four sisters, Julia Atchison of Bardstown, Rosanne Bowling of New Haven, Dorothy Toney of Charlotte, N.C., and Mary Wilma Parman of Pataskala, Ohio; and three brothers, Orville L. Vittitow Jr. of Dayton, Ohio, Joseph H. Vittitow of Lawrenceburg and Harry S. Vittitow of New Haven. She is survived by her father, George H. Perkins of New Haven. A joint funeral will be held at 10 a.m. Thursday at St. Catherine Catholic Church in New Haven, with burial in the church cemetery. Visitation will be from 5 to 9 p.m. tomorrow at Joseph L. Greenwell Funeral Home in New Haven.