[SailinAway]

I owe you guys some more serious thanks for this thread. A couple of posters mentioned carbon monoxide early on and that made me understand the seriousness of my situation. Without that, I probably would have waited a few days to take action. My parents taught us kids about carbon monoxide poisoning when we were very young. Remember Family Safety magazine in the 1950s and 50s? My parents used to make us read that every month and then gave us a written test on it. Carbon monoxide was a popular topic.

On Sunday night while I was reading your responses to my questions, I googled "carbon monoxide poisoning symptoms" and came across the story below at the Quota website. As soon as I read it I called the fire department at 10:30 at night for a carbon monoxide test and then called the oil company for service. Unwarranted panic or smart? I decided I'd rather be alive and look foolish.

This chilling story from the Quora website is long but a good cautionary tale about carbon monoxide:

My father and I went to our lake house to do some repairs and prepare for the next tenants one winter night. When we got to the house we found it was warm and realized the heat had been left on from the previous tenants over a week ago. Though we had planned to work on the house that night, we decided instead to rest and watch a movie. About 30 minutes into the movie, my father decided to go to bed. I fell asleep on the couch soon after, too tired to go to my bed. At the time this just seemed like a random decision, in hindsight there was much more to it.

I woke up because my heart was racing unnaturally fast and forceful, like nothing like I've ever felt, even with intense exercise. I had sweat through my clothes, and the cushions of the couch were completely saturated like a wet sponge. I suspected I had a severe flu. I called out to my father upstairs and he called back that he was getting out of bed but he never came after some time passed. I tried to get up to go to his room but my body felt too heavy. At some point I fell back asleep, but awoke again due to the same symptoms, and now when I called to my father there was no response. I forced myself up and made my way up the staircase which appeared distorted and eerie, like a haunted house, which I later found is a very common perception with carbon monoxide poisoning. I found my father lying unconscious on the bed.

After some difficulties and fumbling which are difficult to remember I luckily found his cell phone and called 9-1-1. I told the dispatcher that both my father and I might have the flu and that I thought I was having a panic attack because my heart was beating extremely fast. Carbon monoxide never crossed anyone's mind. I didn't know the exact address of our lake house, and I couldn't revive my father to ask him. She told me to take deep breaths, so I laid on the bed next to my father and controlled my breathing. With every breath I felt I was going deeper into a fog. My vision started to go black like when you stand up too fast. Up until this point I was panicked and hyperactive, but before going unconscious I do remember feeling a heavy sleepiness and calm.

I woke up to fire truck lights flashing and plain-clothed firemen in the bedroom shouting and opening the large glass sliding doors. Through the commotion, the word "carbon monoxide" struck me immediately and everything came together. I remember at that point I was soaking wet in sweat, my heart was beating rapidly, and I felt terrified, which I think is partially attributed to the confusion I was feeling. I also could not feel my body, and moving was very difficult. I was lying in bed moving my arms and legs around trying to feel any kind of sensation. My father was still unconscious on a stretcher and I was picked up and carried out.

In the ambulance my father woke up and was actually angry, insisting he was only asleep and he wanted to go back to bed. I remember that his face was unusually red, which I later found out was a symptom of carbon monoxide poisoning since carbon monoxide makes red blood cells more red than oxygen (meats are sometimes treated with carbon monoxide to appear brighter red). The paramedics explained to him that he was poisoned and that if I didn't call 9-1-1 we would have been dead within 30 minutes. They told us that the concentration of carbon monoxide in his bedroom was the highest they had ever seen, 1,000 ppm, measured after the windows were opened. For reference, allowable workplace levels are 25 ppm and levels of 1,600 cause death in 2 hours. The firemen also said they suspected it was carbon monoxide when the dispatcher told them there were two victims. I don't know why the dispatcher was not trained with this knowledge.

In the hospital, our oxygen saturation was critically low, and we were treated in hyperbaric oxygen chambers. The physician counseled me that carbon monoxide binds 240 times more strongly to red blood cells than oxygen, and used the metaphor that once carbon monoxide takes a seat on a bus it stays in its seat longer and there is one less seat for oxygen. Once the seats fill up with carbon monoxide, there will be no transport of oxygen to the tissues, particularly the brain and heart. This is why my heart was speeding up, as a last ditch effort to get whatever oxygen was left in my blood to my tissues. We were discharged after about one day when our oxygen saturation was at normal levels.

What I find unusual about carbon monoxide poisoning is that my father and I had very different reactions. My understanding of the event is clearer and more accurate than my fathers. He is elderly and fell asleep very deeply, and also woke up much more disoriented than I did. I, 25 at the time, was showing severe flu-like symptoms, and was waking up from sleep in a panic due to those symptoms. If not for my atypical reaction, without a doubt I would not be writing this today.

The reason the house filled with carbon monoxide is because there was a leak through the upstairs bathroom to the basement that corroded a hole into the furnace, which had been left on for an extended period. The batteries from the carbon monoxide detector were removed by the last tenant, likely because it was going off.