A man from Steinbach is sharing the lessons learned after he and his wife almost succumbed to carbon monoxide poisoning in their home on Cypress Place last Friday. Dave Williams says they were alerted around 2:30 a.m. by a CO detector that is part of their home alarm system.

Dave Williams and his wife want us to learn from their experience."The furnace cracked, or blew, and pumped carbon monoxide into the house. And, not just a leak, it actually sent the chimney fumes straight up the ducts. Our master bedroom took the most of it so we were kind of in rough shape. We should have had a separate alarm in our bedroom. We learned that the levels in our house could have been fatal to a child or a smaller-built person."

Williams notes they have a fairly expensive CO detector in the basement of their two-storey home but did not hear it. They have a cheap $30 plug in model on the main floor which detected the carbon monoxide but failed to go off. In the end, they were alerted by a detector that is part of their home alarm system. Williams says the gas inspector told him there should be a CO alarm on every floor.

"I found out from the gas inspector that it (carbon monoxide) doesn't lay on the floor like I thought it did in the basement. It mixes in the whole house. So, it's wherever your heat duct is going to blow, it's going to mix carbon monoxide in."

He notes his wife was almost unconscious by the time the alarm sounded and he was groggy but they managed to get out in time.

"Initially, we were very disoriented. That's kind of the scary part because, a little longer, and if we hadn't responded or heard anything.....I know my wife probably took it worse than I did. She was passed out on the bed already. She didn't know what was going on. But once we got up and moved a little bit, we realized this is something we had to deal with, then it was okay. We had some headaches. We got outside right away and the paramedics were there and they checked us out."

A guest who was staying with them also got out okay. Williams reiterates there should be a CO detector on every floor. He also plans to place one in each bedroom. And he says make sure it's a good one that will go off when it detects carbon monoxide.

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Three Steinbach Residents Okay After CO Leak