At the risk of being a carbon-monoxide (CO) bore here, I just want to use this opportunity to warn anyone who uses piped or bottled gas to either cook their food or heat their homes to get an audible carbon-monoxide detector as soon as possible. Also get a detector if you use a wood burning stove or open fireplace.
CO audible detectors cost around £14 here in the UK and will detect the build-up of this deadly and odourless gas in your home, place of work, boat, cabin, caravan or trailer before it reaches fatal level.
My reason for requesting this is that my son James' body was found at his home on August 3 after police forced the door. He was badly decomposed having been dead since around July 17. All initial toxicology was normal but when my daughter and I searched his home last week we found clear signs that he had used his mains gas oven shortly before his death and there is no effective ventilation in his small home. I tested the ventilation with smoking incense cones. None of it worked, the smoke did not deviate.
We had the funeral on Friday August 22 but we are expecting the second toxicology report to show high levels of CO. He was found collapsed, lying across the foot of his bed. In the absence of any other cause and with the evidence of his recent oven use and the complete lack of ventilation, CO becomes the inevitable conclusion.
Carbon-monoxide is a peaceful death as the victim simply goes to sleep. They do not suffer. It is the friends and family who suffer afterwards. Initial symptoms can include sore throats and 'flu-like' symptoms while more advanced symptoms can include depression and psychosis. As my son was bi-polar he was especially vulnerable as we would not have recognised these later symptoms.
Please be safe, please be careful, please buy an audible carbon-monoxide detector.
Barry Slemmings
Father of James - 1983-2014
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