Silver Spring, MD – Judith Summers, a 95-year-old resident, is eternally grateful to the firefighters of Station 19 after they responded to her home on Sept. 10 for a carbon monoxide alarm.
Summers, who has lived in her home on Sanford Road for 54 years and in Montgomery County for 55 years, said the basement alarm started going off in the evening but she chalked it up to a faulty battery, and only after a second alarm began going off did Summers begin to realize something was wrong. Summers sent her aide to check the basement and call the fire department. She said firefighters were at her home within five minutes.
They were extremely efficient and here in no time at all. There was no smoke and the whole team checked everywhere and said it was the carbon monoxide alarm and told to us leave immediately but I said I couldn’t, so they took a chair out and me and my aide out. We waited 45 minutes before the house was cleared. The captain said if I waited any longer, we would both be dead, Summers said.
The aide, who has declined to be named, tested positive for carbon monoxide because she went to the basement to check for smoke, and Mrs. Summers tested negative for carbon monoxide. Summers wrote a letter to County Executive Ike Leggett to express her gratitude to the firefighters. Leggett in turn wrote a letter to Summers promising her that her praise would be relayed to Chief Steven Lohr.
Not many people take time to praise, they are very eager to call and complain about things but they don’t go to bat but I have always been that way. I’ve always tried to give credit where credit is due. She, the aide, gets credit too because if she hadn’t been here with me, I would have completely fallen apart after the whole thing happened, Summers said.
Washington Gas came to the home the next day to check for the source of the carbon monoxide. Summers said she replaced the water heater the next day, which was determined to be the cause of the poison.
I am grateful to live in Montgomery County where I get such excellent use of my taxes and hope that the fire team at Station 19 never gets downsized, Summers said.