HARVEY -- A Harvey man tells Eyewitness News a CO detector saved his life, just two days after he bought it.
Stiltner said it was a hunch that made him decide to upgrade his old smoke detector that he had for years at his home on Grefer Avenue in Harvey.
"I cranked the heater up on high cause I was taking a shower and when I came out on the hall it started screaming," he said.
And who'd think trying to keep warm would be something that could have cost Stiltner his life.
"It's unusual, it's just the way that chips fell," Captain Mike McAuliffe with the Harvey Volunteer Fire Department said.
McAuliffe explained this could have been a fatal situation. According to the responders, the call came in at 7 pm on Tuesday. When firefighters checked the residence with a gas meter, they detected high levels of carbon monoxide, and it was coming from the furnace.
"Smoke sometimes if you're there, you can see or smell the smoke,” McAuliffe pointed out.
But because carbon monoxide is an odorless gas that was being emitted from natural gas burning off, without a detector it's almost impossible to know.
"Yeah for a couple days it's been really bothering me and I've been sleepy," Stiltner said.
This Wednesday Stiltner called heating technicians to get a new heater.
And, according to the technicians who came out, parts of the piping inside the unit were rusted, and that's what allowed the carbon monoxide to escape. But it doesn't have to be rusty to be dangerous it could just be a part of a pipe that's coming apart.
"If you really care about your family and for yourself, please get one of these, you can see it saved my life and it could save yours," Stiltner said.
Now it's possible the leak has been going on for years, but now with a new HVAC unit, and detector, Stiltner won't have to worry about an invisible killer.