It was a close call for a pregnant woman in Vernon on Tuesday morning, when she woke up sick to her stomach.
She had no idea the carbon monoxide levels were rising inside her home, and she was already suffering from the silent killer.
“At first, I thought I might have been dehydrated so I just started drinking some water, but then I started getting sick and we were both getting sick so I knew something was wrong,” Brennan said.
In that moment, Brennan, who is six months pregnant, thought back to the carbon monoxide detector she had unplugged three days earlier. She thought it was beeping because of a bad battery, and by the time she realized she was in danger, it was too late.
“I feel lucky that I had to wake up for work that morning, and that we weren’t sleeping in,” Brennan said. “Because it could have turned out completely different.”
Brennan was taken to Hartford Hospital. She received treatment in a hyperbaric chamber because even a little carbon monoxide can threaten the oxygen to the baby.
With two carbon-monoxide-related deaths in Connecticut this week, doctors say Brennan’s close call serves as a good reminder to make sure you have a working carbon monoxide detector, and to check your heating system again because it has been a long winter.
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“It’s been a long time coming,” Dr. Kelly Johnson-Arbor said. “I think people might be sick of it and they just might not want to pay attention anymore, but it is important that people pay attention to their furnaces, and if they have a problem, to get it fixed because it could kill you.”
Brennan is expected to be released by the end of the day Wednesday. She is expecting a son at the end of June.
