A Mother's Plea to Congress: Warn People About Carbon Monoxide

WASHINGTON, Dec. 17. 2009— -- Even after 14 years, Cheryl Burt still hears the labored breathing of her 16-month-old son Zach. She says she felt helpless to save him as he died in his sleep of carbon monoxide poisoning.

Burt lost two of her three children that night to something she never even thought was a problem.

"When you have carbon monoxide in your home, you cannot see it. You cannot taste it. You cannot smell it. You will feel its effects – a headache, nausea, dizziness – but you don't realize that you're being poisoned," she told Congress today.

"I had smoke alarms in my home. I used safety gates and child locks, and I thought my home was safe. I was wrong. On this particular evening, I progressively got sicker and sicker, with what I thought was a family-sized case of the flu," she testified.

A Senate subcommittee today looked into the problem of carbon monoxide poisoning, the so-called "silent killer." Carbon monoxide poisoning kills 500 Americans each year and sends 20,000 to emergency rooms. Children are particularly susceptible.

Burt told her own story to the subcommittee in an effort to help others. "I never thought that we were being poisoned. By the time I did realize something was terribly wrong, I had no idea just how terribly wrong it was. I didn't realize that my babies were dying, just rooms away from me. I couldn't help them, or even help myself," she said.

"A carbon monoxide alarm would have saved my children's lives. But I didn't have one in my home. So that night, my two youngest children died in their sleep from CO poisoning due to a malfunctioning furnace that was venting dangerous levels of CO throughout our home," Burt said.

She told Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., who held the hearing, that her children are the reasons she supports legislation to raise awareness about carbon monoxide poisoning.

"I can give you three very good, very precious reasons for my support: Nicholas Todd Burt, Zachary Todd Burt, and Ryan Todd Burt," she said as she wiped away tears.