Veazie, ME – A Veazie woman says she feels lucky to be alive after a close call with carbon monoxide–and she has a warning to other homeowners this summer.

Early Saturday morning Karen Lifgren woke up with a bad headache and noticed her condo was very cold.

Turns out snow had been cleared off the balcony above her apartment the day before–blocking the exhaust vent for her propane heater.

Luckily she was able to air out the apartment and got out safely with her dog and cat.

She didn’t have a carbon monoxide detector.

“I can only just tell you that to me it was a miracle that I woke up. I don’t know why I woke up. Both alarms–if you have any kind of gas heating, your really have to have carbon monoxide. And that when the snow is like we had this winter to keep on checking. Drifting, wind, that sort of thing, anything can cover it up and then it becomes very dangerous,” says Lifgren.

We’re told crews from Lifgren’s complex quickly cleared the vent, and we’re told the realtors who were showing the unit upstairs have been warned to be very careful where they’re dumping snow.