It’s a Saturday afternoon, and Steve and Kelly Stanton are relaxing on the couch enjoying their Cowboys beat up on another team this season. Steve has his favorite beer in hand and Kelly is watching, but during the commercials, she closes her eyes to rest a little. The twins kept her up all night, and fortunately one of the neighbors offered to take all the kids to soccer practice for the afternoon.
Kelly lined up the carpet cleaner last week for the upstairs kids’ rooms and bonus room. Fortunately, they can’t hear the power vacuum where they are with the game going. The carpet cleaner has backed his car into the garage with the auxiliary generator running full tilt along with the van running, garage door is open…
Steve and Kelly couldn’t be more relaxed enjoying the game and recovering from a busy week of work and making sure the twins made all their practices, play dates and after-school activities. The Simpsons have no gas appliances in their home; it’s a modern home and for the most part runs on solar energy from the panels on the roof.
The DIY security system they installed last spring had a carbon monoxide sensor in the box activated and monitored when they received it. Knowing they had no gas appliances or fireplaces, they threw away the packaging and tucked it on the catch-all shelf in the kitchen. They both mention to each other that they feel unusually tired and think nothing of it. Thirty minutes later they are both light-headed and not thinking straight, their brain functioning diminished significantly. Fortunately, the carbon monoxide sensor they had tossed on the shelf detects the deadly carbon monoxide gas and sets off the siren. Since it is also monitored, it dispatches the fire department to their house.
The carpet cleaner can’t hear anything upstairs; he has his headphones on and the noise from the cleaner is loud enough to muffle everything. The EMT first on-site already know it is a carbon monoxide event from the monitoring center and are prepared with the appropriate gear. Steve and Kelly are quickly pulled out of the house unconscious from carbon monoxide poisoning by the EMT and given medical treatment. That carbon monoxide sensor just saved their lives in a house that has no combustible appliances.
So, how did this happen? The simple airflow and a breeze that was gently pushing all the gas from the carpet cleaner’s equipment ran into the house. The buildup of carbon monoxide could very well have been deadly if not for the small carbon monoxide sensor and the alarm dispatch. The carpet cleaner still had two more rooms to finish and was not planning on taking a break. The carpet cleaner is just one example of a scenario where having monitored carbon monoxide made the difference between a happy outcome and a random tragedy. Security for Life includes a monitored carbon monoxide sensor with every system we send out.