Carbon Monoxide Alarm And An Angel Save Palos Hills Family

PALOS HILLS, IL -- If you’ve ever wondered what it would be like to need to scream, run for help, or pick yourself up off the floor but feel like someone is pressing on your chest holding you down, ask Nesrin Hasan. Had it not been for the quick actions of her neighbor Amber Rivera, Nesrin’s family might have perished from carbon monoxide poisoning, and this would be a tragic story instead of one with a happy ending.

Nesrin and Amber live across the hall from each other in a Palos Hills condominium complex. Amber drives a school bus for District 118, where she is beloved by parents and students. Last Monday, Oct. 22, around 5:30 a.m., Amber woke up to her carbon monoxide alarm beeping.

“My husband was up. I was kind of panicking. He insisted it was just the batteries,” Amber said. “I wasn’t sure if the batteries were getting low, so I changed them. The alarm went off again.”

Still feeling unsettled, Amber got ready for work. Her late father, Larry Matkaitis, who passed away in 2016, had been an Illinois State Fire Marshal. She felt her father was nudging her.

As Rivera continued getting ready, she noticed a faint gassy odor wafting from heating vent in her unit. So she began googling what the beeps meant on her cheap $10 CO alarm. Although carbon monoxide is odorless and colorless, when people say they "smell carbon monoxide," they are usually referring to the other combustion byproducts that the human nose can detect. When Amber opened the door and stepped into the shared hallway, she was overwhelmed by a funky gas smell.

“I made my husband come out and smell it,” she said.

Amber and her husband, Louis, gathered their three children and pets. They evacuated their building while on the phone with 911 dispatchers. As they ran out, they began banging on their neighbors’ doors and pressing the buzzers in the main entry, shouting for them to leave the building. One of their neighbors had already left for work. An elderly couple who live directly downstairs from them had no idea what was going on and were not affected by the gas leak.

While racing outside, Rivera heard a blood-curdling scream. It was her neighbor, Nesrin, summoning up her last bit of strength to let out one last, life-saving yell. Although the family’s front door had been locked, it hadn’t clicked into place.

“Miraculously, the door wasn’t shut all the way, and I was able to push the door in,” Amber said. “Their whole place smelled overwhelmingly of gas.”

Just behind the foyer wall, Amber found Nesrin struggling to get up off the floor. Amber dragged Nesrin into the hallway. She yelled for Louis to run inside and get Nesrin’s 7-year-old son, Adam. As Louis carried the unconscious child out of the unit, he was screaming for Nesrin's husband, Malik Awin, to wake up. By that time the North Palos Fire Protection District had arrived. Firefighters were able rescue Malik, who was carried out the unit unconscious.

The fire department said the levels of carbon monoxide inside the unit were well over 1,000, which is dangerously high. Had the levels reached 1,200 or 1,300, the family would be dead.

“The firefighter told us this is one of the most legitimate carbon monoxide cases that he’s ever witnessed,” Amber said. “My CO detector is the furthest point from the source. The CO detector in our shared hallway never went off, which should have been activated before the one in my home. The only reason this family survived, and possibly ours as well, was because of my cheap $10 CO detector.”

After the gas in their building was shut off, Nicor determined there was a leak in Nesin and Malik’s furnace, even in the turned-off position. The family was transferred to Advocate Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge, where they spent the day recovering in a hyperbaric chamber.

In the days leading up to the CO leak, Nesrin recalls feeling headachy. Sunday evening before going to bed, Malik complained he was cold and thought he had a fever. Carbon monoxide poisoning often emulates flu-like symptoms. People get confused and disoriented, or don’t wake up at all if they’re asleep, and are unable to get themselves help.

At some point during the night, Malik encountered Nesrin passed out on the floor. She told him she was cold, so he covered her with a blanket on the floor. He fainted on the couch.

“We were hallucinating, we didn’t know what was going on,” Nesrin said. “I felt pain my body. I kept waking up trying to get to my phone to call 911. I was paralyzed and couldn’t hold anything in my hands. I screamed for my son. The next thing I remember is Amber pulling me into the hall.”

Nesrin said her family is feeling much better. For now, they’re staying with her mother and shopping for a new furnace.

“We’re still pretty shook up, we’re sleeping with the windows cracked,” Nesrin said. “We don’t want to go back to our house.”

Amber still doesn’t know why she wouldn’t let the beeping CO alarm go. She’s since gone out to buy two, higher-quality digital CO alarms. She plans to give one to Nesrin.

“I swear my dad was pushing the button to wake me up. Everything just lined up,” Amber said. “I’ve told this story to several people. I realized many don’t understand the gravity of what can happen with CO poisoning, or what it is. CO has no smell, color, or taste. Gas was the culprit in this situation and I, fortunately, was able to detect that, but not all CO exposure has that indicator.”

Nesrin and her son presented Amber with a gift of balloons at Palos East Elementary School. Adam made a card for Amber, calling her Super Woman.

“She is our hero,” Nesrin said.