Emotional plea from Minnesota mother: Please check your CO detectors
Carbon monoxide exposure dangers highlighted
Minnesota?s state Fire Marshall?s office is launching a campaign to highlight the silent, but deadly dangers of carbon monoxide poisoning ? encouraging everyone to have monitors, while giving out free ones across the state.
KIMBALL, Minn. (FOX 9) - For nearly 30 years, Cheryl Burt has lived with the pain of losing her two youngest sons.
And, the pain of knowing how easily she could have prevented their deaths.
"Had we plugged this in, my whole, entire life would be so different," she said through tears, holding a simple carbon monoxide detector in her hand.
Her advocacy is why Minnesota is now giving 2,500 detectors away to eight communities deemed at the most risk.
A tragedy in Kimball
The backstory:
In the late fall of 1995, Cheryl noticed that her entire family felt sick all the time.
She had a constant headache. Her husband never felt right, either. Her young sons had a hard time waking up.
She was taking them to their doctor so often that she was labeled a hypochondriac.
"Let’s say we turned our furnace on the end of October," she recalled, "and our incident happened in January. We were sick."
The incident came in early January. She turned up the furnace on a bitter cold night in Kimball, Minn. Not long after, she collapsed on the floor. Her husband, also delirious, later woke her and said their two youngest boys, ages 4 and 18 months, were dead. Their 5-year-old son was barely alive.
They were treated in a hyperbaric chamber and recovered, but their two youngest, Zach and Nick, were gone.
"And that’s when life completely changed," Burt said.
Free carbon monoxide detectors
What's happening now:
In 2022, Sen. Amy Klobuchar sponsored a bill to give grants to states to give out free carbon monoxide detectors. Cheryl testified in Washigton, D.C., to help get it passed.
The grant program bears the names of the two sons she lost: The Nicholas and Zachary Burt Memorial Carbon Monoxide Poisoning Prevention Act.
Through the Minnesota Department of Public Safety, the State Fire Marshal’s Office is now handing out 2,500 detectors in eight communities: Austin, Bemidji, Brainerd, Duluth, Red Wing, Rochester, Virginia and Willmar.
"We’ve identified these communities as populations having higher risk of exposure to carbon monoxide," said State Fire Marshal Dan Krier.
They’re also launching an ad campaign reminding people to make sure their detectors are working properly, to change the batteries or to buy new ones.
Since 2009, state law requires CO detectors within 10 feet of every sleeping space in a home.
Preventable deaths
What they're saying:
Each year in Minnesota, an average of 14 people lose their lives to carbon monoxide poisoning. Hundreds more are treated.
"These are real families," said Dan Fife, the Assistant Fire Marshall for the Rochester Fire Department, where the kick-off announcement was held. "Real lives, and they’re preventable tragedies."
The most common culprit is a furnace that isn’t ventilating properly, due to a leak or a blockage. Fireplaces and natural gas appliances also pose a threat if not properly maintained.
Cheryl Burt said she’d nearly purchased a new CO detector just days before her tragedy. The fact she didn’t haunts her every day.
"I don’t want anyone to experience the pain of carbon monoxide, the pain of losing any loved ones, the pain of having to live your life advocating for people to please put something simple into your home," she said.