Family almost gassed to death

A call of nature saved the lives of a Waikato family from carbon monoxide poisoning.

Their close call comes just a month after an Ashburton mother and her children died from the fumes of a car left running in a garage to keep the battery ‘‘ticking over’’.

The South African father of two girls, who asked not to be named, got up for the toilet in the early hours of Sunday morning only to lose consciousness in the bathroom of his Ngaruawahia home.

‘‘I started feeling nauseous walking to the toilet and I fell, hitting my head,’’ he said.

He was floored by the gas from garden rubbish burning on a barbecue the family had brought into the living room through the folding doors to help keep warm.

The noise he made as he went down, hitting his head on the shower cubicle, around 2am woke the others in the house who came to his aid.

‘‘My oldest daughter, who is 12, said: ‘I am phoning 111,’ but as soon as she talked, she gave the phone to me and collapsed,’’ the mother said.

Their younger daughter, 10, dropped on to the living room couch before she reached the bathroom from her bedroom.

The family were taken to Waikato Hospital by St John Ambulance, the adults in a serious condition, after emergency services arrived at their home. They were sent home 11 hours later after being given oxygen.

‘‘If he did not get up to the toilet, we would be dead,’’ she said. ‘‘We are just lucky to be alive.’’

Normally they would have used conventional heaters, but both had recently failed.

The mother said her family’s brush with death had given them a new appreciation of life.

‘‘You take life for granted. It just makes you appreciate things more.’’