[StBernard] Heater's fumes killed boater in sailboat home in eastern New Orleans

[Westley Annis]

Heater's fumes killed boater in sailboat home in eastern New Orleans 
By Ramon Antonio Vargas, The Times-Picayune 
January 17, 2010, 9:37PM
A man who died alongside his dog inside their sailboat home in eastern New
Orleans under initially puzzling circumstances last week was asphyxiated by
the fumes from a propane heater on board, according to authorities.



The bodies of Brian Deubler, a 45-year-old father of two, and Spade, his
mixed female Labrador retriever, were found inside a boat moored off the
21700 block of Chef Menteur Highway on Thursday about 9 p.m., said John
Gagliano, chief investigator for New Orleans coroner Dr. Frank Minyard.


Investigators were initially stumped. Deubler lay in his bedroom, while
Spade lay in a common cabin area. The entrances were locked. New Orleans
police told Deubler's family that the boat had become a crime scene.


But investigators later discovered a propane tank with an attached heater
that Deubler left running in the shut-up cabin, Gagliano said. The heater,
which Gagliano said was designed for outdoor use, apparently malfunctioned
and leaked a large amount of propane. Deubler and his dog may have dozed off
without realizing that the colorless, odorless gas slowly displaced the
cabin's oxygen and asphyxiated them. They both likely died some time Jan.
13, Gagliano said.


The bald-headed, long-bearded Deubler -- a search-and-rescue worker during
Hurricane Katrina who survived a serious motorcycle wreck nearly three years
later -- was an electrician by training who moved into the sailboat after
buying it from a friend several months ago. He had just purchased a tract of
land with his father in Franklinton, according to Breann Deubler, his
20-year-old daughter.


He had started constructing a house on the land and planned to move there to
care for his dad, I. Charles Deubler Sr., who relatives said was a stroke
victim.


Deubler, also the father of 16-year-old Andrew Nicholson of Chalmette,
assumed the task of developing the tract in Franklinton even after crashing
his motorcycle into a ditch in Slidell in July 2008. Deubler slipped into a
coma for several weeks before recovering.


Flooding during Hurricane Katrina in 2005 wrecked his home in Chalmette,
said Charles Deubler Jr., his brother. He fled the storm to Houston but
immediately volunteered for search-and-rescue missions in the New Orleans
area when he arrived. He snapped photographs of his home, a Home Depot and
the Chalmette National Cemetery under water and submitted them to nola.com,
The Times-Picayune's affiliated Web site, to document the damage for his
neighbors.


"He always put others before his problems," Breann Deubler said. "After all
he recovered from, it's not fair the way he died."


Deubler wrote on his MySpace page that he marched as a member of the
Gentilly-based Krewe of Dreux. He patronized Melvin's Bar in the 2100 block
of St. Claude Avenue and B.J.'s Bar in the 4300 block of Burgundy Street,
Charles Deubler Jr. said.


Breann Deubler, a soccer player, said her father learned how to coach and
play the sport to spend more time with her when she was younger. He stated
on his MySpace that he raised Breann on his own after he divorced her mother
in 1996 after 11 years of marriage.


"I was very lucky to have him as a father," she said. 


Charles Deubler Jr. added: "I don't know anybody who didn't like Brian."


Deubler's family sensed something amiss when he didn't contact his father or
daughter for several days during the second week of January. They asked a
friend of his to check on him.
It was Charles Deubler Jr.'s birthday when the friend discovered the two
corpses. It was also the same day the brothers' grandfather had died 31
years ago.


"Now you see why I don't celebrate my birthday," Deubler Jr. said.