We were almost poisoned by carbon monoxide in our home

Lucky second years narrowly escaped carbon monoxide poisoning in their home last week.

The four students, who live on Honister Avenue in Jesmond, were keen to save money on bills so decided to use the open fire in the living room.

In what has been described as a freak accident, the chimney flu flap shut in the middle of the night, leading to the deadly gas filling the whole house.

Dan, who studies Ethical Hacking for Computer Security explained what happened on Tuesday morning:

“At six in the morning an alarm was going off, turned out it was the carbon monoxide alarm. I did feel a bit dizzy when I went in but thought nothing of it. I asked Ross what to do and he told me to open up the flu flap. I went back to sleep.

The flu flap

“On Wednesday we all felt really dizzy and sick. When Ross and I were out that evening, Emily and Heather called Walton Robinson.”

Heather, a Criminology student, explained what happened when she called the letting agent:

“There were two out of hours numbers so we called one and the guy was a bellend and said he couldn’t do anything because he’s not a gas guy. The second guy didn’t answer but called back and said they couldn’t do anything so we should call Transco.”

The man sent out by Transco informed the girls that they needed to go to hospital and somebody from British Gas would be round the next day.

Transco informed the girls they needed to open all the doors and windows. But Emily and Heather couldn’t open the back door as they hadn’t been supplied with keys.

They aren’t so keen to use it now

Heather explained: “The British Gas guys were really shocked when they heard we couldn’t open all the doors and windows.”

Dan revealed that despite requests for maintenance in the past, nothing had been done: “We’ve asked Walton Robinson to repair the faulty door and windows but we were told they’re waiting on a quote”.

The girls rang 111, after speaking to Transco, and an ambulance was sent out to take the girls to hospital. Dan joined his house-mates to get check out too.

Heather was the most affected by the poisoning as she has severe asthma. Luckily she sleeps with an air purifier and the doctor told her this probably saved her life. But she was one level of poisoning away from there being life threatening consequences.

Emily and Dan had low levels of poisoning and Ross decided not to bother, with Dan joking “Ross wouldn’t go to hospital unless his head was falling off”.

But the housemates were terrified: “We were taken into the death room and the doctor told us how lucky we were to be alive.”

Dan and Heather

On Thursday morning British Gas workers came to the house for seven hours to strip the boiler, check the chimney, loft and the pipes for any other signs of leakage. The investigation revealed that the flu flap shutting was the cause.

Heather said: “We weren’t told about the risks of having an open fire, that we should have taken the flu flap out when we use the fire”

“The British gas guy said that the monoxide detector we did have was so old it was basically shit, even though it went off, we should have had new ones”.