Alarm saves our Terry from silent killer
MIDWEEK Herald photographer Terry Ife has a stark warning to householders after his family was saved from a silent killer – thanks to a carbon monoxide detector.
MIDWEEK Herald photographer Terry Ife has a stark warning to householders after his family was saved from a silent killer - thanks to a carbon monoxide detector.
"Get a detector," he says. "If that alarm hadn't gone off, we may not have woken up."
Terry, 51, was relaxing on the sofa at his home in Cypress Close, Honiton, when the alarm sounded.
"I fitted it five years ago and never gave it a second thought," he said.
"When it went off, just after midnight last Wednesday, I was able to get myself, my wife Carole and our German shepherd dog, Jessie, out of the house." In the morning, Terry called in an expert and discovered carbon monoxide was spilling into his living room from a gas fire.
"It was coming into the room instead of all going up the flue," he said.
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"The cause was so trivial - cobwebs in the flue - but we could have died.
"Carbon monoxide is odourless, colourless and silent."
Terry has had the chimney flue cleaned by a professional and says every home should have a detector.
"I am going to get my mum to have one fitted," he said.
