A pet’s barks and cries alerted the occupants of a Western Slope home to a carbon-monoxide buildup this weekend and saved their lives, a family says.
Kenai, a 14-year-old Bernese mountain dog mix, started “whining and barking” at 4 a.m. Sunday, waking one of three adults sleeping in the basement of the New Castle home, said Kirstin Kraig of Arvada.
“We’re sure glad she was there,” Kraig said of Kenai, a friend’s dog. “I truly believe that if it weren’t for Kenai, we wouldn’t all be here today.”
Kraig and her husband, their two children, five other adults and four dogs were all using the home during a family-and-friends getaway weekend, Kraig said.
They had pizza, which they cooked in the home’s propane oven, before retiring for the night. Investigators have told Kraig the carbon-monoxide leak was caused by the oven.
Kraig said she has carbon-monoxide detectors at her Arvada home, but the three-level mountain getaway home, owned by her in-laws, didn’t have any.
A couple, Todd Smarr and Michelle Sewald — Kenai’s owners — and another woman, Karen Hull, were all sleeping in the basement, the level of the home that had the highest carbon-monoxide threat.
Kenai woke up Smarr, and as he was trying to comfort the dog, Hull got up to go the bathroom. When she came out of the bathroom, Hull told Smarr she wasn’t feeling well.
Smarr woke up his wife, Sewald, to take care of Hull and all three came to realize that none of them were feeling well. Instead of helping Hull, Sewald collapsed in Smarr’s arms.
“She went unconscious right away,” Smarr said. “I ran upstairs to another bedroom and said ‘We need some help.’ ”
The group collectively identified the carbon-monoxide problem, in part, because of fatal cases earlier this year in Colorado that received widespread media coverage, Kraig said.
Everyone got out of the home and into fresh air.
Smarr was treated at Valley View Hospital in Glenwood Springs and released. Sewald and Hull were taken by helicopter from Glenwood to Presbyterian/St. Luke’s Medical Center in Denver, where they were treated in a hyperbaric chamber.
Everyone is expected to fully recover.
Sewald and Hull were released this morning.
Three carbon-monoxide detectors have since been installed at the mountain home, Kraig said.
“Everyone is feeling fine.” Kraig said today. “It was a little scary.”
Like Kraig, Smarr believes Kenai saved his life.
“I’ve heard so many stories about carbon-monoxide poisoning, where people don’t realize it’s happening, and they never awake,” Smarr said. “If I hadn’t heard Kenai in trouble, we would have been in that same situation. I don’t think we would have woke up.”
Kieran Nicholson: 303-954-1822 or knicholson@denverpost.com
