My phone rang while I was heading home. It was my six-year-old daughter, sobbing, saying she was in pain everywhere and terrified. I asked where her dad was. She said he was there—suffering too, helpless. I drove faster than I ever had, my heart pounding with fear. What I walked into moments later shattered every expectation I had.

“My husband and daughter are unconscious. I think it’s carbon monoxide,” I told the dispatcher, my voice cracking. “We’re outside now.”

She instructed me to stay out of the house and keep Sophie awake. I laid her on the grass, talking nonstop, asking her favorite questions—her favorite color, her teacher’s name, the name of her stuffed rabbit—anything to keep her responsive.

Within minutes, the sound of sirens cut through the night. Paramedics rushed in with oxygen tanks while firefighters sealed off the house. They carried Michael out on a stretcher, placed an oxygen mask over his face, and loaded Sophie into the ambulance beside him.

At the hospital, time blurred into a haze of bright lights and clipped voices. Doctors confirmed my fear: severe carbon monoxide exposure. The source was a malfunctioning gas water heater in the basement, slowly leaking odorless gas into the house. The detector had failed—its batteries long dead.

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