An lowa family was saved from carbon monoxide poisoning after their heroic dog alerted them to the potentially-deadly gas leak inside their home.
Brad Harbert, 37, from Ankeny, realized something was wrong when his husky and coonhound mix, Roxy, woke him up in the middle of the night, which is out of character for her.
‘She just was jumping off my bed, jumping back up on the bed,’ he told WHO13, the NBC affiliate in Des Moines. ‘When I started to come to, I was hearing an alarm, and it wasn’t the smoke alarm.’
The dad explained that Roxy is ‘really mild-mannered’ and rarely barks, though he noted she does howl when you ‘ask her to talk.’
Harbert realized his beloved dog was reacting to the carbon monoxide detector that was going off. When he got up, Roxy went to check on his son Jackson.
‘I jumped out of bed. Right when I did, Roxy came out to the hallway and she scratched Jackson’s door to see if he was OK,’ he explained.
Harbert read the front of the carbon monoxide detector and learned that it ‘chirps four times’ when there is active carbon monoxide in the house.
He immediately got his father, son, and dog out of the house and called 911. The Ankeny Fire Department arrived just minutes later, but they couldn’t figure out where the poisonous gas was coming from.
MidAmerican Energy came to the home and determined the carbon monoxide was leaking from Harbert’s electric and gas fireplace.
Harbert got choked up while talking about Roxy’s heroism, saying: ‘She’s pretty special to us.’
‘I could tell something was wrong that night that she woke me up and just her actions, she was kind of shivering and just really concerned that we would get outside,’ he added.
Harbert told WHO13 that he advises other homeowners to get working carbon monoxide detectors and have their fireplaces regularly serviced to protect themselves from the odorless gas.
‘[I’m] very, very happy to have a dog and very happy to have her,’ he said.
