back-to-school safety

Did you know....

that the beginning of school marks the beginning of Carbon Monoxide season?

Cooler weather means that furnaces and fireplaces which haven't been used for months are being fired up-- not just in your home, but everywhere else your child goes.  Schools, gyms, shopping malls, theaters-- any place where a fireplace, generator, or furnace is used-- can expose your child to dangerous levels of CO (carbon monoxide).

Most people don't ever think about CO.  I know I didn't, till I married a doctor whose job is treating victims of CO poisoning.    Every year in the US, 5000 people die and another 50,000 are permanently injured from CO.  CO is the leading cause of accidental death by poisoning in the world.  And it is preventable!

Even now, most places do not require CO detectors.  Most smoke detectors are not CO detectors.  And most people who die in house fires die from the 'fumes' (CO) rather than the flames.

When my husband started telling me these things, I asked why everyone does not carry around a CO detector with them at all times.  Back then, the answer was that they were too darned bulky.  Nobody wants to lug around something the size and weight of a large can of tuna fish. Finally, last year at a meeting with other CO docs, my husband spotted a colleague wearing a teensy little gizmo on a cord around his neck.  It was, and still is, the only US-manufactured portable CO monitor/alarm-- called the Pocket CO300, made by a company in California called KWJ Engineering.  (http://www.detectcarbonmonoxide.com)

This is a fantastic little device, and you read no further, I urge you to buy one of these monitors for every member of your family.  But the fact is, most people don't want to look quite so nerdy as the CO doc at a meeting of other nerdy CO docs.  And if you toss the monitor in a purse, or in your pocket-- it can't function properly.  The vents on the monitor MUST be exposed to the air, in order to sense CO.  

I started a company called NoCO Gear, Inc. and worked closely with a very talented designer, and with the folks at KWJ, to come up with ways for people to take the CO300 with them everywhere they go and still make sure that it can do its job.  The photo above shows one such product-- a child's backpack with the monitor built right in.

Before you say, "Ah!  This is just an ad,"  let me tell you:  I'm not making one penny for the sale of these items.  I started this company because my heart kept breaking when I heard about kids who went to sleepovers at friends' homes and never woke up, about people in hotel rooms who were poisoned so severely that they can't balance a checkbook any more, about teenaged girls working in fast food restaurants who dropped dead from CO on the job.

I want to protect people from this 'silent killer', and for that reason alone am I urging people to buy my products.

I really hate blogging, and I hate advertising, but that's the only way to get the word out about this issue.  I'm going to publish this first page now (because I really don't trust that it will work), and then I'll tell you more about NoCO Gear, Inc. (http://nocogear.com), about my husband and me, about my products--- and I'll tell you about some of the heartbreaking cases that led me to spend the money and effort I have put into this project.

Lynne Thom, Wallingford PA