Carbon monoxide detector saves Lincoln family

Dale Radley is thankful his family had a carbon monoxide detector fitted in his Lincoln home

A grandfather has described how his family had a lucky escape after their home filled with carbon monoxide.

Dale Radley, who had been at home with his wife, their 21-year-old daughter, and two-year-old grandson, said they owe their lives to a detector.

The Lincoln taxi driver said he was told had they not had one, they might "not have woken up the next morning".

He urged homeowners to get one installed.

The source of the problem was traced to a gas oven

Mr Radley, 60, said the alarm had been activated while his wife Dawn made lunch using the gas oven on 21 January.

"I went upstairs to check [the alarm]," he said. "I reset it and immediately it went off again. That's when I thought I needed to get the fire brigade."

Firefighters told Mr Radley the readings on their equipment were "very high, upstairs and downstairs".

"The crew basically said without a carbon monoxide detector there would have been a possibility we wouldn't have woken up the next morning," he said.

A gas engineer turned off the supply to the house and investigations traced the source to a single ring on the back of the cooker.

Prior to the incident, Mr Radley said he had not given a thought to the detector, adding:"It's made me change the way I look at safety."

Dan Moss, an area manager at Lincolnshire Fire and Rescue Service, urged people to learn from Mr Radley's story and have a detector installed.

He said: "Carbon monoxide is referred to as the silent killer - you can't smell it or taste it. The potential for the gas to be there with nobody knowing is real. It's too late by the time you realise."