Family rushed to hospital during electric outage
The drawn-out power outages in the Merrimack Valley nearly cost Michele Laurent and her family their lives.
Deadly levels of carbon monoxide seeped into her Methuen home from a generator in the garage, sending Laurent, her two children and her mother to Lawrence General Hospital early yesterday.
“We should not be alive today,” Laurent said.
Thankfully, everyone is OK. Laurent was without power for five days and repeatedly reported the outage — as well as the downed wire dangling across her driveway — to National Grid.
But crews didn’t restore power to Laurent’s home until yesterday after news outlets reported on her family’s frightening plight.
“We weren’t supposed to wake up but we did and we’re thankful for that,” said Laurent, 40, a nurse at UMass Memorial. “If I didn’t know the symptoms, I probably would have gone back to sleep.”
The family lost power Sunday. Her house was cold and she had just bought $200 worth of groceries, so she picked up a new generator at Home Depot Monday morning. At night, she piled extra blankets on her kids. “It was tough,” she said.
She put the generator in the garage and ran its thick power cord under the door leading into her home, which allowed carbon monoxide to leak into her house, she later learned.
Around dinner time Wednesday, her daughter, Mia-Noelle, 10, said she felt sick. Laurent thought her daughter had a cold.
As she ironed her children’s school uniforms, Laurent herself felt a little off.
“Maybe I’m dehydrated,” the single mom thought.
At 1:30 a.m. yesterday, her daughter vomited. Laurent began to rethink everything, taking notice of her headache and the metallic taste on her tongue.
At that point, Laurent recalled, she knew it was carbon monoxide. She quickly opened all the windows in her home and checked on her mother, who said she was fine. She tried waking up her son, Donovan, 9, but he wouldn’t wake up right away.
She called 911. “I think I have carbon monoxide poisoning,” she told the dispatcher.
She then got everyone out of the house.
“That’s when we really started feeling horrible,” she said.
Her son threw up as soon as he breathed in the fresh air.
When help arrived, emergency workers gave the family members oxygen and ambulances took them to the hospital.
“The fact that they threw up,” she said of her children, “they were actually poisoned.”
Laurent’s mother, Vita Naissant, had the highest levels of carbon monoxide, Laurent said.
She took their chocolate lab, Bella, to the veterinarian but the dog was fine.
Laurent said she has a carbon monoxide detector but it’s wired so it stopped working when the power went out.
When her power was finally restored yesterday, she was all smiles. “We needed this three days ago.”