Frankfort family survives carbon monoxide poisoning
Credit: WLFI
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The deadly substance started leaking in their home on christmas eve.
By that evening they were all hospitalized.
News 18's micah upshaw joins us in the studio with more on the incident.
Micah?
Carbon monoxide is orderless, colorless, tasteless, and almost impossible to detect until it's too late.
The martinez-campos family is happy to be alive but say it's unfortunate carbon monoxide detectors were not in their home at the time.
M: the first week of the new year is bringing a new sense of appreciation of life and family time.
Just a week earlier, this frankfort family of five found themselves fighting for their lives.
A: i start feeling sick around 2'o'clock and i told my husband i'm feeling sick and he told me what's wrong and i say i prescribe myself, i say probably because i get up so early i'm too tired.
M: alexandra campos says she started cooking earlier that day.
But every hour she became even more weak.
She later learned her stove,heater and ful leaking carbon monoxide.
Her 6-year-old daughter bella was the first to faint.
A: i scream gabriel, gabriel, my girl.
Something is wrong with the baby, something is wrong with the baby.
M: the family called 9-1-1 when they saw bella stopped breathing and started turning blue.
Paramedics rushed her to the hospital and campos and her husband followed.
Leaving their other two daughters kazzandra and gabi at home.
K: me and my sister were just hanging out in the living room and then a couple minutes later she was sleeping on the couch, at least i thought, but supposedly what they told me is that she was actually passing out.
M: kazzandra called her mother to tell her, her middle sister fainted and that she was also starting to feel sick and dizzy.
Campos relayed that to the doctor who then sent another team of paramedics to their home.
Frankfort firefighters were also called to investigate.
That's when they discovered carbon monoxide was the cause.
A: if those alarms was working the way it was supposed to be working, this couldn't be happening.
M: campos claims she had two-in-one smoke and carbon monoxide detectors in her home prior to the incident.
She says she allowed frankfort firefighters to replace the alarms after they told her the ones they provide are the same.
Campos said this carbon monoxide incident is when she learned the detectors in their home were only smoke alarms. a: i thought that they had the same ones, that's what we thought, we have the same ones that we bought but no, they just gave me a smoke alarm.
They took them because they have to prove that they did come to my house and switch those alarms. j: our people were trained on how we're going to enter the homes and the talks we were going to have with them and that's definitely not something our firefighter were supposed to say but that's under investigation at this time.
M: the frankfort fire department started hosting a smoke detector blitz in 2015 and continued through 2019.
Firefighters go door-to- door to replace smoke alarms and provide fire safety and awareness tips to residents.
It's during this time that fire chief john kirby believes they may have made a stop at the campos household.
He says he's grateful they made it out alive and hopes this never happens to any other families.
J: you definitely need to have a carbon monoxide detector present.
This time of year is when you want to get your furnace inspected and you want to make sure that you're fireplaces are cleaned out.
A: get those alarms. yore never going to find out that your whole family is getting poisoned unless you have a carbon monoxide alarm.
The family is now back in the home with those appliances leaking carbon monoxide turned off.
A family friend donated a water heater but the family is still in need of a furnace and oven.
You can find out how to support the martinez-campos family on our website wlfi.com.
I am reporting in studio, micah upshaw, news 18.
Thanks, micah.
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