Whitehall, OH – Five-year-old Gabriel Chinchilla is getting credit for saving his family last week after their home filled with high levels of carbon monoxide.
The family had a security system installed that included a carbon monoxide detector that same day.
Gabriel said he thinks an angel or God helped to wake him up, because he never wakes up in the middle of the night, no matter how noisy it is. He add when he woke up, he heard a loud sound coming from the CO detector.
“I woke up. I opened the door. I shut the door and I walked out of my room. Then I opened my mom’s door, then I tried to wake her up,” said Gabriel.
“Gabriel came into the room about 2 in the morning and told me ‘mommy it’s loud. I can’t go back to sleep,” said Jessica Carroll, Gabriel’s mother.
The family evacuated their home as soon as they realized there was carbon monoxide inside. Firefighters saif if the levels had risen for a few more hours, the family could’ve died.
“I was just amazed that if Gabriel didn’t wake them up and they didn’t wake me up, [we] wouldn’t have seen another day,” said Michael Cole, Gabriel’s older brother.
Gabriel was awarded for his efforts in front of his classmates by the Whitehall fire and police departments.
Gabriel’s parents said they’re not sure how long carbon monoxide was inside their home.
They said four large cracks in the furnace is what caused it.