A power line was knocked over by high winds near Melanie Lyons' home. The mother decided to borrow a generator from a friend until the issue was resolved. The only problem was the generator is intended to be used outdoors.
Melanie didn't think there would be anything wrong with putting the generator in the basement.
“It’s a two-story house. We figured we’d all be okay. With the windows and everything and obviously it was a bad mistake,” Melanie said.
A few hours later, Melanie's husband woke up with a splitting headache. The pain was so agonizing he actually moaned. That moment, she realized it was carbon monoxide from the generator.
She ran and grabbed her 5-year-old and 9-year-old sons with her husband. The family ran out of their home and went straight to the hospital.
“It was very scary because I didn’t know what was happening. I didn’t know what was going to happen,” her son Jacob said. “I felt really dizzy."
Melanie's husband was poisoned so severely he had to spend six hours in a hyperbaric chamber. The family will be OK but may have neurological difficulties later on.
“So stupid. Like the simplest thing could have just put it in the backyard, and ran the wire in there, and so stupid. My kids could have not woke up, I could have not woke up, my husband, my mother-in-law,” she said.
Melanie wants people to learn from her mistakes: Always have carbon monoxide detectors in the home and never use an outdoor generator inside.
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