10-Year-Old Stays Up Late Playing Video Games, Hears Beeping, Warns Family & Saves Lives

A 10-year-old boy is being deemed a hero after saving his family from a nearly fatal case of carbon monoxide poisoning — and perhaps it's all thanks to his video games. Matteo Policano was up in the middle of the night playing games, even though he had been told to go to bed hours earlier. It was during this time that he heard a beeping sound in the family's home in West Virginia. "I thought it was the keypad on the door cause that usually rings sometimes," he shared during an interview. But the child wasn't quite sure, so he woke his dad.

Come to find out, the family's smoke detector was beeping for the carbon monoxide alarm. Matteo's mom, Whitney, says she hadn't changed the batteries in a while, so she went downstairs and put in some new ones. However, as the family started going back upstairs, the carbon monoxide alarm in the living room started beeping.

"I just turned around, looked at my husband, and I said, 'Get them out of here now.'" The family of seven rushed outside, where Whitney called 911 and they waited for the fire department to arrive. It turned out that gas from their pool heater was seeping into their home.

More from LittleThings: Baby Girl Saves Mom And Dad From Carbon Monoxide Poisoning

The fire department shared that the family only had about 40 minutes left before it would have been too late for them. "My whole family would've been gone in minutes," the mom said. "He was definitely a hero because if he would've ignored it … he would've went to sleep too eventually and we wouldn't of never been here."