Of life and Carbon Monoxide

Everyone out there should have a CO (carbon monoxide) detector in their home if they have ANY gas appliances, stoves, fireplace inserts, water heaters or furnaces that run on natural gas. I know that I have heard the gas company and the news alerts on it, but we figured we'd be OK. Afterall, that sort of thing only happens to irresponsible people who run generators in their living rooms (no joke, someone did that last winter during a power outage...who does that? Seriously...can we say Darwin award?). To be 'safe' we bought one CO detector for our daughter's room, since she is closest in proximity to the furnace and other 'risky' areas using natural gas in our house. Or so we thought.

Here's the scenario: I finish cooking on my handy, dandy gas stove (I love gas stoves). I had been cooking up some steaks, chicken, sauces - the whole shebang. I love cooking. I finish my culinary masterpieces and what happens? We eat, I clean up a bit, the hubby left to do his thing and I fed some babies. I felt a little yucky, but attributed it to my recent gluten intolerance issue & the fact that I haven't been as good about avoiding gluten as I should. So, no biggie, right? Wrong. Next thing I know, as I am putting babies down for their afternoon naps I hear a loud *BEEP BEEP BEEP* and then another *BEEP BEEP BEEP*. I'm thinking what the heck is that? None of the smoke detectors were going off. Everything upstairs was turned off. I am busy tending to my kids, so another 30 minutes goes by before I get some free time to investigate what is making that noise.  No alarms were going off upstairs...then I realize it's coming from downstairs. In my 2 year old's bedroom. From the CO detector. Thinking - Nah, it can't be. - I change the batteries. It kept beeping. Finally, it hit me - we have a CO leak in the house, with me and 5 babies in it. And it was a bad one, if the number on the CO meter was accurate - 54 ppm in the basement. Dangerous levels begin at 100 ppm. HOLY %*%@#!!!!! I don't think I've ever EVER run as fast, or looked the most like a headless chicken, as I did just a moment after realizing how much danger we were all in. I couldn't look scared because my 2 year old would notice, so I am hurriedly telling her to get her shoes and toy because we were gonna go for a 'bye bye ride in the car'. AGH! The gas guy gets here and determines the CO meter was being generous. The levels in the house were bad - 40 ppm UPSTAIRS and 54 ppm DOWNSTAIRS. He told me that it wouldn't have taken long to be at life threatening levels and we had to open the windows immediately to get the airflow going. Great. Found the leak was coming from our older, improperly adjusted gas stove that I've been cooking on since we moved into this place earlier this year. Everyone was ok, but it was a huge wakeup call. So the lesson is, folks, if you don't think it's gonna happen to you, it will. And make sure you have CO detectors in your house. It very literally saved my life and the lives of my 5 kids this past Saturday. We now have a CO detector for every room in the house plus the hallways. Overkill? Maybe. But better safe than dead.