South Lyon, MI – As a mom and nine girls slept at a home in South Lyon they had no way of knowing they were breathing in poison.
The furnace had malfunctioned, and the house was filling with carbon monoxide. The deadly gas is colorless and odorless. The house did not have a carbon monoxide detector.
The first sign something wasn’t right came at five in the morning. Andrea Spalding, the mom, woke up with a pounding headache. When she stood up she had to hold on to the wall to keep from falling.
She wasn’t surprised at how tired she felt. After all, she had nine girls in her house because she was hosting her daughter Bria’s sweet-16 birthday party. The girls were sleeping downstairs.
She wondered what she was getting sick with, took a Motrin, and went back to bed.
She didn’t sleep for long. She heard people moving around downstairs, and went to check it out. Two of her daughter’s friends were sick too. They felt like they had a stomach flu.They told her they were going to go home. She wondered if something they ate had made them sick. She went back to bed.
Then, she heard a thud. She found one of her daughter’s friends had fallen while trying to walk upstairs.
All of my friends were dizzy and we couldn’t really walk, Bria said.
They were saying, ‘Why are we all experiencing the same thing?’ Andrea said.
Because their stomachs felt so upset, they still thought it must have been something they ate.
Her daughter’s friends called their parents. Their parents picked them up, and took them to the hospital.
Andrea and Bria stayed in their home. Bria’s friends sent her texts suggesting it might be carbon monoxide poisoning, but they figured that couldn’t be. In hindsight, they weren’t thinking clearly due to the poison gas in their bloodstream, so they stayed in their house.
Bria got out her phone and opened the app iTriage. She put her symptoms into the app and it reinforced the concern her friends had raised. It told her she had all the symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning, and needed to get help right away.
So this is what we use to determine if there is carbon monoxide in a residence, Chief Mike Kennedy of the South Lyon Fire Department said as he held up a box with a digital screen. As soon as we entered the threshold it measured sixty. Anything over eight is of concern.
Firefighters tested the carbon monoxide levels in Andrea and Bria’s bloodstreams. It was at 20 percent, a level that would kill some people.
They said if we were in there any longer and didn’t catch it, it could have been deadly, Bria said.
I was upset crying, because all those girls were there, and it could have been much worse. Andrea said.
Firefighters installed a carbon monoxide detector in their house. It is something Andrea says she will never live without again.
I think everyone should have one after going through this, Andrea said.
They all were treated with oxygen at Providence Park Hospital in Novi for several hours. It wasn’t how Bria had planned to spend her 16th birthday.
I planned to go get my driver’s license, said Bria.
She is just grateful she will live to do that on another day.