This was an email I sent to friends and family on 4/2/02. It concerns events that took place the evening before. The nutshell is: get a CO (carbon monoxide) alarm. It will save your life (or the life of your pet).
4/2/02
All,
Please consider this one of those "real life words of wisdom" kind of things, where, hopefully, you can all learn from Lane's and my experiences....
Yesterday during lunch, I smelled lighter fluid in the house. We've been painting and using paint thinner, so I wasn't too concerned about the smell. I wandered the house and garage, but was unable to discern the source of the odor. I went back to work and got a nasty headache.
Later that night, Lane and I were preheating the oven to cook dinner. When I opened the oven door to put in the food, the lighter fluid smell came pouring from the oven. I turned it off and called my dad.
This, I am told, was a mistake. :) More on that later.
Dad advised me to call Southern Union Gas, which I did. I had to select "emergency leak" since it was after hours, and I FELT pretty safe (especially since what I was smelling was NOT gas, but was a butane smell). The really nice operator advised me to do the following:
- do not make any further phone calls from within the house
- do not turn on or off any electrical switches or appliances within the house
- all living creatures should be removed from the house
We opened all the windows and turned on the fan and put the dogs and cats outside and I went back to painting in the back room while we waited for the gas guy. (Our bird was already outside; it was a beautiful day yesterday and he spent the day on our porch.) I also called my dad and my brother. Yes, from inside the house. :)
The gas guy came about an hour later, and he reported that we didn't have a gas leak, but SOMETHING MUCH MORE DANGEROUS, which was a serious problem with carbon monoxide, which, he pointed out, could kill us.
He told us that if our bird had been inside when we were cooking lunch, he probably would have died, and that that would have been our first clue about something being wrong.
The problem was caused by our stove not burning the gas efficiently, and the guy turned off our stove and told us to call a repairman. He said that the monoxide levels were EXTREMELY high, which is why we could smell the gas (usually, it's a slow leak that fills the house, causes sleepiness and headache and then death in the night). He checked the rest of the house, which was fine.
Today a repairman came and reported that it was a problem with our stove just getting older. He adjusted the gas and said everything should be fine.
Lane went this morning to get two carbon monoxide alarms, one for the kitchen, one for the hallway off the bedrooms.
When I was repeating the story to a girl in my office, she told me how stupid I was for using the phone after reporting the gas problem. Her father is a firefighter, and she says it's a HUGE risk to use the phone, that it sparks every time it makes a call, and that that can trigger a massive explosion if you do have a gas leak.
So, in the future, I will not be using the phone to report gas problems. :) And, I'll have the new testers (in addition to our smoke alarms, yes).
This is an FYI to please be aware of carbon monoxide and the dangers associated with it. Yesterday was my parent's anniversary, and I told my mom, mostly joking, that she could consider it her anniversary gift that she didn't have to wake up this morning to the news that Lane, Pitter, Grits, Edie, Pumpkin, Xiang and I were not dead in our beds (or cages, as the case may be). She, naturally, thanked me. :)
But, seriously, it could have happened.
So let's be careful out there!!! :)
Dana, glad to be alive
(editor's note) I received many, many responses from folks on this, many with stories about their own friends and family who had similar experiences, one about a guy who was told by the gas people, after he had moved into a new apartment and had been suffering from headaches and nausea for days, that his CO leak was so bad that if his cats had already moved in, they would be dead! Another told about a displaced exhaust vent that made two friends of his drowsy, leading them to take a nap, and the CO killed them in their sleep.
Go here to read more about gas safety.
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