A family of four is recovering after nearly fatal carbon monoxide poisoning inside their Kitchener, Ont. home.
After spending a night out, Alicia Mighton and her mother returned home to a frightening scene early Friday.
“We came home around 2:30, 3:00 a.m. [and] we found my little sister and my dad unconscious,” Mighton told CTV Kitchener.
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Mighton tried to wake them, to no avail. Acting quickly, she called 911 and put her first aid training to work.
“I tried doing a sternum rub on both and put them in the recovery position,” Mighton said.
The family cat was also unconscious. Mighton revived it using CPR.
“We ended up getting everybody out of the house. Everyone is alive,” Mighton said.
Alison Lewis, Mighton’s sister, said the last thing she remembered was going to sleep. She woke up in the back of an ambulance.
“I couldn’t feel my whole body,” Lewis said. “I didn’t know what was going on. It was a very scary experience.”
Firefighters who arrived at the home quickly determined that carbon monoxide was to blame.
There had been a power outage on Thursday night. Lewis and Mighton’s father started a power generator in the garage. Exhaust fumes seeped into the house.
All four family members were taken to hospital. The father is still recovering in hospital.
“They said if my sister and my mom waited five more minutes (to come home), he would’ve been dead,” Lewis said.
All four are expected to make a full recovery.
“We decided that it was a pretty good miracle that we actually ended up going out that night and not all four of us went to sleep and never woke up,” Mighton said.
Although the family did have a CO detector in the home at the time, the device wasn’t working.
With a report from CTV Kitchener’s Natalie van Rooy
