Fire departments across Michiana urge locals to be to take action to prevent carbon monoxide poisoning
SOUTH BEND, Ind. — Fire departments across Michiana are responding to multiple carbon monoxide calls and urges locals to take preventative measures.
About 45 minutes away in Rochester, an elderly couple was found dead in their home on Tuesday from carbon monoxide poisoning. It was discovered that the home had a CO detector that was not working.
ABC 57 News spoke with Assistant Chief of Fire Prevention for the South Bend Fire Department, Derek Erquhart. Erquhart says the symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning often resemble flu symptoms and urges people not to take it lightly.
"Some of those symptoms, you know you’re talking headache, dizziness, weakness, stomach vomiting, confusion. Those are a lot of things that mimic just being sick in general, so trying to understand the difference to know if there might be carbon monoxide in the home that’s where your alarm is going to come in handy," said Erquhart.
Lieutenant Blake Ertman with the Benton Township Fire Department tells ABC 57 he's seen people using their ovens to warm up their homes. He says he understand that bills are constantly increasing, but using an over to heat your home is never safe or worth the risk.
"They’re just not meant to efficiently heat your house so you’re going to be weighing the difference in utilities on gas versus electric whether it’s electric or gas oven, but those gas ovens are really what our concern is as well for heating especially because that’s what’s giving off that carbon monoxide," Ertman explained.
Both the Lieutenant and the Assistant Chief said everyone should be changing the batteries on their carbon monoxide detectors once a year or every time Day Light Savings rolls around. Ertman says when you change your clocks, you should change your batteries too.
Erquhart says other preventative measures are changing the filter for your heating system, making sure there's no snow or ice blocking vents that lead into the home and never letting your car run in your garage. He says letting it run in the garage with the door open is still too risky, just bring your car out on to the driveway and let it run.
Lt. Ertman tells us the Benton Township Fire Department is getting a new stock of CO and smoke detectors within the next week through the Michigan Fireworks Fund. He says if you give them a call, someone will come install both detectors for you, free of charge.