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A family home nearly became a house of horrors when deadly carbon monoxide leaked in, leaving three people in hospital.
Pat Green was just about to put her two young grandchildren to bed on Saturday night when she sensed something was wrong.
She and her husband Kevin, 60, of Oak Drive, Larkfield, had been feeling unwell all day, but put it down to a sickness bug.
Pat, 55, fears the family could have gone to sleep and never woken up if she had ignored her instincts.
She said: “I was really lethargic, nauseous and felt very weak and after a while my husband started feeling exactly the same.
“Then my daughter Louise came over and became quite unwell quite quickly with the same sort of symptoms.
"We just laid on the settee all afternoon and thought nothing of it as she had been poorly the week before.”
Later her son-in-law came round and remarked how hot the room was. Pat began to wonder if their illness was connected to the house.
Out of the blue, she remembered hearing a clattering noise in the chimney the night before, during a storm which ripped part of the roof off and wondered if something might have blocked the flue.
About to put grandchildren Oliver, four, and six-year-old Grace to bed, she decided to call British Gas.
Within 20 minutes an engineer had shut off the supply and advised the family to go to hospital. They were admitted overnight with carbon monoxide poisoning.
What caused the leak is unknown.
She said: “I don’t know what made me think of it but alarm bells started ringing.
“When we came out of hospital and walked back into the house it was cold and eerie – we were walking in to what could have been a house of horrors.
“The scary thing is I would have put two of my grandchildren to sleep on Saturday night in a house you thought was safe, surrounded by their toys, and they might never have woken up” - Pat Green
“The scary thing is I would have put two of my grandchildren to sleep on Saturday night in a house you thought was safe, surrounded by their toys, and they might never have woken up.”
She added: “I lost my mum recently and she’s been my guardian angel ever since. She certainly had her work cut out for her last weekend.
All five grandchildren were called into A&E for checks, including 15-month-old Jacob. Pat, Kevin and Louise, 23, were given oxygen therapy.
The next day they bought a carbon monoxide detector. Pat added: “There is nothing except tragic stories about the silent killer.
“We are very lucky we all walked home from hospital.”
