I first grasped the deadliness of carbon monoxide poisoning as a freshman in high school.

My best friend’s sister Kim was a junior, and her boyfriend was a senior. Both were popular, and outstanding scholar-athletes. But in an instant, their young lives were cut short as they sat in a car one night with the engine running. The car’s faulty exhaust system filled the car with carbon monoxide (CO), and by the time they might have realized something was wrong, it was probably too late.

Last January 30, a similar tragedy struck when a promising young Vermonter named Jeff Rodliff died in his sleep of CO poisoning in a Burlington apartment building, and ten others were seriously sickened. The building’s heating system was at fault.

Carbon monoxide is a colorless, odorless, tasteless gas, which has long been known as a slow, insidious killer. But last spring, Jeff Rodliff’s passing spurred Governor Douglas and the Vermont legislature to pass a new law requiring that every single-family home being sold or transferred in Vermont contain at least one working carbon monoxide detector. And as of July 1, 2005, all newly built homes require CO detectors. The law also provides that as of October 1, all other buildings in which people sleep -- such as apartments, hotels, multi-family homes, and day care centers – must have working CO detectors, too.

If you own your own single-family house, and it isn’t new and not changing hands, the law doesn’t apply to you. But as this year’s heating season begins, and storm windows are snapped into place for the winter, everyone should think seriously about installing a detector near any sleeping area.

Every year, CO poisoning sends about 10,000 Americans to hospital emergency rooms, and claims more than 200 lives. The most recent yearly statistics for Vermont are from 2004, when fire departments reported 317 CO incidents.

The symptoms of CO poisoning can vary from one individual to the next, but may include dizziness, disorientation or incoherence, nausea, drowsiness or fatigue, irritability or a headache, and can lead to unconsciousness and death. If the symptoms seem to go away during the day while you’re at work or school, and come back during the evening at home, it might indicate a slow CO leak from your heating system.

I’ve experienced those same symptoms, in Air Force pilot training. Using the buddy system, pilots enter a steel chamber wearing oxygen masks, while most of the air is gradually removed from the chamber to simulate high altitude. Your buddy keeps his mask on while you remove yours. You then try to perform a series of tasks, solve math problems and mazes as the symptoms of hypoxia -- or oxygen deprivation -- begin to catch up with you. As pilots, we do this to become familiar with the symptoms and know how to recognize a slow leak of cabin pressure in the plane. CO poisoning is essentially the same thing. Carbon monoxide displaces oxygen in red blood cells, depriving the heart, brain and other vital organs of oxygen.

That’s how it took my friend’s sister Kim’s life, and Jeff Rodliff’s life -- without warning.

Whether or not the new law applies to you, the roughly $25 to $50 cost of a CO detector is a good investment in safety, and peace of mind for your family. Place one in a hallway close to bedrooms. Remember that young children are especially susceptible to CO poisoning, as are elderly people, people with lung or heart disease, and smokers, whose CO blood levels are already higher. If you suspect a case of CO poisoning, get the person into fresh air immediately, and call 911 for help.

For more information, call your local fire department or the Department of Public Safety’s Division of Fire Safety, or visit their website at www.dps.state.vt.us/fire/.