Travel: Are you Safe from Carbon Monoxide on Holiday?

I’ll never forget, shortly after I’d been camping for the first time with my young family, reading about a child who had died, sleeping in her tent, while her parents enjoyed a barbeque outside. We’d had a fun-filled weekend with good friends, packing our children off to bed, then sitting out by the fire drinking cider and tracking the stars. When you go on holiday with children there are all sorts of new dangers that you prepare for, but you never imagine that your kids might die in their sleep, because of a faulty appliance or log fire.

That’s what happened to Stacey Rodgers, whose son Dominic died on holiday from Carbon Monoxide (CO) poisoning. CO is a colourless, odourless gas, often emitted from faulty gas appliances, but it can be produced by fuel fires, and even a family barbeque. In Dominic’s case, the gas wasn’t even from their apartment – it had seeped into his bedroom from a neighbouring property. Forty people have been killed or injured by this deadly gas whilst staying in a tent, caravan, holiday cottage or boat in the last two years, and it’s almost impossible to tell if your holiday home is affected until it’s too late.

Project Shout is an awareness campaign aiming to put an end to such terrible accidents, by shouting about the risks, and making sure that everyone packs a CO detector along with their sunscreen. Project Shout have created a practical guide to Carbon Monoxide Alarms, along with advice on where to place them to detect the gas before it becomes dangerous. Alarms are inexpensive to buy, and portable, so you can use them at home, as well as when travelling.

For me it’s a no brainer. As a family who loves to travel, we are likely to sleep in lots of different places, and it’s not just cheap hostels and caravans that are at risk. People have lost their lives in reputable holiday apartments, booked through UK tour operators, so it makes sense to ensure your safety, in the same way it would to take your vaccinations and leave your passports in the hotel safe. I also want to teach my children about the dangers of Carbon Monoxide poisoning so that they remember to take care of themselves when they’re doing budget holidays as young adults. You wouldn’t leave home without your sunscreen, and Project Shout want you to consider a Carbon Monoxide alarm just as essential.

It's a no brainer! Make sure your family is safe from Carbon Monoxide poisoning when you're on holiday. Click through to read more about the risks.

18 thoughts on “Travel: Are you Safe from Carbon Monoxide on Holiday?”

  1. Carbon monoxide is such a frightening thing isn’t it. We’ve got a mobile tester that we have in our home, perhaps we should take it with us when we go camping!

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  2. Your post reminded me when I almost died because of carbon monoxide… twice. My grandma used to have gas heaters and twice one of them broke down and started to leak burned gas into the house. Luckily there is a specific symptom that you get, a kind of sick that you recognize the second time it happens so I was able to turn everything off, open the windows and call the fire department to come and check. Since then I bought a carbon monoxide alarm and I would never go to sleep if it wasn’t on.

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    • Oh wow how scary Joanna. Thank goodness you realised! The campaign has actually made me think we ought to have an alarm in our house, not just on holiday.

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  3. Carbon monoxide scares the hell outta me. My friends were very lucky, they had leak and kept getting headaches and sickness for about 3 days. Had no idea why and then their cat starting acting weird. They googled and saw about the CM symptoms and called a gas engineer out. He came and said they had to get out the house right away as it was to dangerous to be in the house. They were in hospital and VERY lucky to be alive!!

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  4. The stories on carbon monoxide deaths are so sad! It’s great that Project Shout are doing something to help.

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  5. Oh my gosh, that’s such a scary thought! It hadn’t really crossed my mind to think about it before, but a small portable alarm is such a good idea, a holiday must in fact!

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  6. Oh my goodness what a scary prospect I think this is the last thing people think about on holiday so this definitely needs to be shouted from the rooftops!

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  7. Oh my. We do have a detector in our house and it would be so easy to take it away with us. So pleased I’ve read this as it’s such an easy thing to do. Elinor x

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  8. This is a fantastic initiative! Such an inexpensive device that could potentially save your life must surely be added to everyone’s camping kit.
    (Hubby helping out)

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  9. We take a carbon monoxide monitor on holiday with us every time due to a scary experience my parents had in their motorhome. It’s so important to be aware of this!

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  10. We have CO testers in our home but not really thought about holiday accommodation, will go and discuss with my partner…

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  11. We don’t really think about Carbon Monoxide out of the house but we should do when going camping. Its very frighting to think it could happen in the great outdoors

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