Summary
This article recounts a personal experience of waking to a carbon monoxide alarm, the steps taken in response, and the lessons learned about the importance of safety alarms.
Contains mentions of a fatal accident.
On Monday, October 7, my boyfriend and I bolted awake and out of bed. It was 5:30am, and there was a repetitive beeping that reverberated in our small bedroom and our heads. We moved into this flat less than a month ago, after spending previous years on campus, and didn’t immediately realise where the sound was coming from. At first, I thought it was one of our phones. But then my boyfriend inspected the gadget on the door which separates our bedroom from the boiler and said: “It’s the carbon monoxide alarm.”
An oddly crucial fact of this story is that I’m from Sweden. Back home we don’t have boilers in the same sense, instead relying on electric heating. CO poisoning is rare, and I can honestly say I never read about it in the news. Until that morning it never occurred to me that such a leak could happen for no apparent reason.
My boyfriend proceeded to ring his mum. I picked up my phone and tried to find advice online when the National Gas Emergency Service number appeared, so I called them. Bear in mind, all the while we were phoning, Googling, and kind of panicking, the beeping still had not stopped. I got a hold of a man who said to open all windows and turn off all appliances. The very moment my boyfriend managed to reset the alarm and the beeping stopped we were told an engineer would be with us in a couple of hours and to sit tight until then. We sat and waited in our living room with the windows wide open, huddled under blankets and anxiously analysing every potential symptom, until he arrived.
We greeted him in our pyjamas and he proceeded to cap our gas until another engineer could come by to do a more thorough investigation. All the while we were distracting ourselves from the situation by lamenting the little amount of sleep we had gotten. We joked about it throughout the day until the second engineer arrived. He was inspecting our hob when he mentioned there had been an accident the night before.
On October 6, around 6pm, there was an explosion in a home in Alloa. Three were injured and one deceased. While unconfirmed at the time of writing, the BBC had said that “gas may still be the reason for the explosion”. This theory was shared by the engineer who, during that conversation, had our gas hob fully lit to get accurate readings. Not soon after, when no CO amounts were detected, we discovered the batteries in the alarm had expired. Rather than signalling low charge, it had given a false alarm. The engineer assured us we had done the right thing by calling, whether or not the threat had been real. Better safe than sorry.
We were lucky, plain and simple. But we didn’t joke about our tiredness any further. We couldn’t cope with humour after learning of the tragedy Alloa had suffered. Having stayed in the University’s accommodation previously, I remember endlessly complaining about the fire alarms going off, even the scheduled testing every Wednesday morning. In retrospect, I find comfort in knowing that those alarms worked.
That evening we replaced the faulty alarm. Moving forward, we will make a habit of checking the batteries on our gas and fire detectors. I hope our would-be close call reminds you to check yours. A small act of caution can make all the difference.
Featured image credit: Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com
Sleep-deprived fourth-year Literature, Film, and Media student. Cat enthusiast, Fleetwood Mac devotee, and avid collector of hobbies and obscure facts. Occasionally finds the time to paint, crochet, and write stories.
