A Barrie family is lucky to be alive after a carbon monoxide leak.

“I smelt a smell coming from my furnace last night, didn't think much of it,” she says. “And then smelled it again this morning. It smelled a little bit. Not like a burning smell but like a gas smell.”

Dianne Kenney called the fire department this morning to the home on Letitia Street, where CO sensors read 550 parts per million.

She, her husband, and two of her five kids were home. When crews arrived, their carbon monoxide sensors went off immediately.

Firefighters say signs of carbon monoxide poisoning can start showing at 70 parts per million..

“When we arrived there with our readers – 550 parts per million and that's what the readout was in their furnace room,” says Samantha Hoffman with the Barrie Fire Department. “Just around the corner there were two teenage boys sleeping.”

“They yelled at us to get out of the house as fast as we could,” Kenney says. “So they donned on their gas masks and everything and they shuffled us over to the fire truck and ambulance that was waiting as well just to make sure we were okay.”

It was her instinct that saved her family.  She thought the carbon monoxide detector they had was working and didn't realize it needed to be replaced because it was 15 years old.   

All CO detectors have expiry dates and today have a lifespan of about seven years. 

The furnace, which created the carbon monoxide problem, will have to be replaced, and for the time being the family will use space heaters to keep warm.

Tonight they are breathing a lot easier.

Kenney says it’s been “emotional,” and says the situation came close to turning out a lot worse.

Firefighters say if you always feel sick at home and better when you leave, you might have a carbon monoxide leak.

They also suggest writing the year you purchase your alarm on the actual alarm so there is no question about how old the machine is.

You can find out how to protect your family from carbon monoxide poisoning by going to our Carbon Monoxide Safety page and clicking on your local fire department.