Blairstown, IA – Lightning struck twice for one man in the Corridor, but it came in the form of poisonous gas.
Eric Medd’s life was hanging in the balance on Saturday morning when he and his wife woke up to an unexpected surprise.
“I knew something was wrong,” Eric said. “I became very light headed and disoriented and passed out in my kitchen.”
Little did they know, their pool heater was blowing a poisonous gas into their bedroom window.
“Carbon monoxide poisoning, that never crossed my mind,” Kathy said.
“The wind was just right and it blew it into an open window that we had in our bedroom,” Eric said.
Eric didn’t only experience a headache and flu-like symptoms, but also déjà vu.
A similar life-changing ordeal happened to him years ago.
“I lost my friend who died at my feet and I spent an hour and 20 minutes in a room that was 80,000 parts per million with CO2,” Eric said.
While at work at ADM three years ago, he looked death right in the face.
“I was told at the hospital there’s only eight people in the world who ever survived it: six of them are vegetated, one is mentally handicapped and myself,” Eric said.
He and his wife credit the first responders for being there when his life depended on it.
“It’s kind of wild to think about, to imagine that a guy was that close to being gone,” Dave Manternach, training officer at Blairstown Fire, said.
Manternach was one of the first responders at the scene of Eric’s home.
He said carbon monoxide poisoning isn’t rare, but fortunately there’s a way to prevent it.
“It’s not like a hydrogen sulfide that smells like rotten eggs, the only way to tell it’s in your house is through a carbon monoxide detector,” Manternach said.
Eric didn’t have carbon monoxide detectors in his home at the time of the incident, but he made it a point to get one as soon as they were released from the hospital.
Both survivors said it’s imperative to have one of the detectors in your home because it truly is a matter of life and death.