Public Service Announcement

[colchar]

Although I haven’t posted for a while, and am not sure I’m ready to come back just yet, I wanted to post this as a public service type announcement as I think it is very very important.

Basically, my parents dodged a huge bullet this week and I’d like to implore all of you to take the necessary steps to ensure that you never endure a similar scare.

My parents get their furnace serviced every year and it is kept in extremely good condition (my Dad is also a retired plumber/steamfitter/gasfitter so he takes care of it throughout the year). But something went wrong and they weren’t aware of it.

Their yearly inspection was scheduled for this past Monday. When the serviceman showed up he immediately shut the furnace down because there was a crack on something inside that was causing a carbon monoxide leak. My parents had both been feeling lousy for a couple of days but had chalked that up to a dose of the flu that they had passed between themselves. The serviceman ensured them that it wasn’t the flu, but the early signs of carbon monoxide poisoning.

They had a new furnace installed and everything is fine now but they had a very close call. They’ve had carbon monoxide detectors sitting in the closet for a couple of years but just never got around to installing them. Had they done so, they wouldn’t have had such a close call. So here is the public service announcement part of this post. Please people, buy yourselves carbon monoxide detectors and install them. Had Mom and Dad done so they would’ve known about the leak as soon as it started.

When I arrived home to visit them Tuesday the house was freezing as the new furnace had only just been installed. But I could easily have shown up to find both of my parents dead. The serviceman said that, had the service call not been scheduled, they just wouldn’t have woken up one day this week – the leak was bad enough that they would’ve succumbed to carbon monoxide poisoning. We were extremely lucky as this could very easily have turned tragic. As I said – please please buy carbon monoxide detectors and install them in your house. The $20 investment will repay itself over and over if it helps prevent a potential tragedy for any of us.

[OZZIE4DUKE]

Thank you Colchar for a valuable suggestion. We are all very glad that you and your folks had such a lucky, favorable outcome!

And please, do come back to the boards.