Just call Cochrane’s Irwin family the poster children for carbon-monoxide (CO) detectors.
Suffering from poisoning symptoms for almost four days, the entire family rushed themselves to Cochrane Urgent Care Centre on Dec. 2 after it was discovered their Grand Valley Road home had dangerously high levels of the colourless, odorless, invisible gas in their home which had no operating CO detector in it.
A faulty furnace, one of two in their home, had been spewing unsafe levels of the gas throughout the house for days. It wasn’t until “a friend” came over with a CO detector that the true nature of their close call was fully revealed.
“We had somebody come out and check it and he had his detector and his detector went off,” said Diane Irwin, mom of three kids in the home. “My daughter had been sick since Sunday – just headaches, vomiting but not normal vomiting.”
The friend with the detector understood what was happening.
“And I guess he knew the symptoms and we didn’t. I called and tried to get into the doctor’s and we couldn’t. The friend came on the Wednesday and said we should get into urgent care because he knew the symptoms.”
Irwin informed her husband, who had also been feeling unwell for a couple of days, who met her and their daughter, Ruby, at Cochrane Urgent Care. Upon arriving, they were treated for CO poisoning with the administration of oxygen pumped from tanks through face masks. They were there for six hours receiving treatment. She is grateful for the care they received from Cochrane Emergency Services and Cochrane Urgent Care Centre staff.
“We were told had we stayed home one more night, we probably wouldn’t have woken up,” Irwin said. Both her sons were out of the house when the rest of the family evacuated. They were called and went to urgent care when they found out.
The family has since purchased CO detectors for their home and had both furnaces inspected. The faulty furnace is still awaiting repair.
“You really need one (detector) downstairs and one near all the bedrooms,” Irwin said. “We went out and bought three of them.”
Her message is simple: “Really just to make sure people are aware to have CO detectors.”
