BATON ROUGE - Five people are in the hospital after a family member came home to find them unconscious with a generator running inside their house. 

The Baton Rouge Fire Department said five people were rescued from the home on Avenue D shortly before 7 a.m., adding that all of them were unconscious but breathing.

The victims included three children ages 10, 12, and 15. The other two victims were 20 and 43 years old. 

First responders said they were alerted after the children's father came home and found one of the family members in a room unconscious. Authorities found five people unconscious when they arrived. Officials said the generator had run out of fuel by the time 911 was contacted.

Fire officials said as of Wednesday morning that the patients are still being monitored and are "not out of the woods yet."

The father told WBRZ the family had just moved into the home two days earlier and that they brought the generator inside because of rain. He said he left for work around 6 a.m. that morning but came home an hour later because he was feeling dizzy. When he went inside, he found his wife and four children unconscious. 

Wednesday afternoon, the man said his family was in three separate hospitals and that he was hopeful they would be released the next day. 

Experts say carbon monoxide poisoning occurs when carbon monoxide builds up in the bloodstream, usually because of an overabundance of carbon monoxide in the air. It occurs because the body begins to replace the oxygen in red blood cells with carbon monoxide, which can lead to serious tissue damage and even death.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the most common symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning—also known as CO poisoning—are headache, dizziness, weakness, upset stomach, vomiting, chest pain, and confusion.