Its known as the silent killer. It has no smell, no color. Its completely undetectable by human senses and it can kill you before you even know what happened. It's carbon monoxide and as the weather gets colder, carbon monoxide becomes a bigger and bigger problem. It is extremely important to have carbon monoxide detectors on every floor of your home.

Station 10 of the Colorado springs fire department learned just how important it is to have one of those detectors... After a crew was poisoned by carbon monoxide one cold winter night.

The night of December 28th,1988 is a night that Mike Carroll and rest of the crew of station 10 will never forget.

"I went to bed and about 6:30 in the morning and I woke with a splitting headache, I was kind of disoriented."

That is because the boiler in the basement was having trouble ventilating and the basement began to fill with carbon monoxide. The deadly gas made its way up to where the crew was sleeping. Lieutenant Carroll remembers it clearly.

"I got out of my bed and I walked into the locker room and about the time that I got to my locker I became very dizzy, my knees became weak and at that time thought I was having a stroke."

He wasn't having a stroke. The oxygen in his blood was being replaced with carbon monoxide. His body was suffocating. He made his way to where his fellow firefighters were sleeping, looking for help.

"At that time I told them, somethings wrong, I don't know what's wrong and activity started, they were going to treat Mike and one of the other individuals stood up from bed and immediately lost consciousness and went all the way down."

It soon became apparent that there was something in the environment making everyone sick.

"We had three people lose consciousness, one of them had a seizure...about 15 more minutes and he wouldn't have made it at all."

They were able to get out to fresh air just in time.

"we were very close and we were very lucky."

The firefighters were all sent to the hospital. Everyone did fully recover.
Soon after that very close call, every one of the fire stations was equipped with a carbon monoxide detector. It is just as important for homes to have them as well they are inexpensive investments in your families safety.