A MOTHER who found her ten-year-old son dead in his bed from carbon monoxide poisoning has backed The Cornishman's Making A Noise About The Silent Killer campaign.
Stacey Rodgers heard about our campaign on the internet and contacted The Cornishman through Twitter to offer her personal support.
This week Stacey appeared on national TV after taking her own campaign for carbon monoxide awareness to the House of Commons.
And despite living far from Cornwall, in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, Stacey – who runs awareness charity The Dominic Rodgers Trust in her son's memory – said she would do all she could to help our campaign.
She is the latest in a long line of people who have contacted the paper to tell their own carbon monoxide (CO) horror stories.
Last week we featured Penzance master chimney sweep Don Rowe who has first-hand experience of the dangers posed by the odourless, colourless and tasteless gas that can kill without warning.
The week before we ran a plea from Charlotte Bone, of Heamoor, who wanted people to be aware of the dangers of the so-called silent killer after she was declared "an hour from death" by doctors following a CO poisoning incident at her home.
The Cornishman dedicated itself to raising awareness of the dangers of CO – which can leak from badly-ventilated fires, heating systems and badly-fitted chimneys and flues in homes – after the death of Gill Adams in St Ives.
Gill's son Brett helped launch our Making A Noise About The Silent Killer campaign with a tribute to the people who lived near his mum's guesthouse, the Treliska in Bedford Road in St Ives, and a call for people to protect themselves with carbon monoxide alarms in their homes.
It is a call Stacey Rodgers echoes.
"I would really like to help The Cornishman's campaign," she said.
"The need for alarms is a requirement we all need, as well as making sure we get gas checks done by a Gas Safe registered installer."
Stacey's son Dominic died in 2004 when fumes seeped into his bedroom.
An inquest into his death was told a neighbour's faulty boiler was to blame.
Stacey said the horror of finding her only child dead in his bed never left her.
"I sometimes break down," she said.
"I don't think you ever get over the death of a child; you just learn to live with it as best you can."
When the coroner told her Dominic had died from carbon monoxide poisoning she had to ask her family what it was.
That has all changed now, and Stacey said the campaign had given her a mission in life.
She is a member of CO Angels, a campaign group made up of women who have lost loved ones to CO poisoning.
Twenty people a year die of carbon monoxide poisoning. Alarms cost only around £20.
Stacey said: "My ultimate dream would be for every house to have carbon monoxide detectors in much the same way that smoke alarms are installed as a matter of course nowadays.
"I put all my time and effort into the campaign. After all, I could have died that night too. I'm lucky to be here today."
Common symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning include:
• Dizziness,
• headaches,
• fatigue,
• nausea,
• confusion.
