“I chose to buy a toy truck for my son instead of a CO alarm,” said Cheryl Burt. “I still have the toy truck — but my sons are gone.” 

Burt has had to live with that realization for nearly three decades. Two of her sons, 15-month-old Zachary and 4-year-old Nicholas, died from carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning in 1996 while sleeping in their beds. 

Cheryl, her then-husband, 5-year-old son Ryan and the family dog were also poisoned but survived. 

The family felt sick leading up to that night but didn’t know it was from CO leaking out of their furnace. 

Often called the invisible or silent killer, CO is an odorless, colorless, tasteless gas created when fuels (such as gasoline, wood, coal, natural gas, propane, oil, and methane) burn incompletely inside furnaces, generators, car engines, stoves, clothes dryers and many more commonly used appliances. 

A person can be poisoned by a small amount of CO over a longer period of time or by a large amount of CO over a shorter period of time. 

Signs of CO poisoning are similar to the flu and include nausea, headache, confusion, fatigue and shortness of breath. 

“CO gives no warning,” said State Fire Marshal Dan Krier. “The only way to know you’re being poisoned before it’s too late is with a CO alarm. It’s a small device but it could save the people you love most.” 

That’s the focus of our State Fire Marshal (SFM) division’s latest campaign. 

SFM has distributed 2,500 CO alarms to fire departments in eight Minnesota cities with populations at higher risk of CO poisoning. Those cities are Austin, Bemidji, Brainerd, Duluth, Red Wing, Rochester, Virginia and Willmar. 

Fire departments will install alarms in homes free of charge, while also educating residents on CO poisoning and prevention. 

The installations coincide with the statewide rollout of awareness and education ads reminding Minnesotans to think about CO poisoning, especially as cold weather approaches and Minnesotans need to heat their homes. 

The ads are timely with Halloween around the corner, as they feature a number of classic monsters including a zombie, werewolf, witch and alien. But as we know, these are just pretend — it's actually CO that could kill you. 

We hope these characters will be eye-catching and intriguing, as Minnesotans see and hear them on social media, at gas stations, on streaming services and on SiriusXM radio. 

The main goal of the campaign is to get people’s attention, while still emphasizing the seriousness of CO poisoning. 

It’s thanks to Burt’s advocacy that this campaign has come to fruition; it's partially funded through the federal Carbon Monoxide Poisoning Prevention Grant Program and Nicholas and Zachary Burt Memorial Carbon Monoxide Poisoning Prevention Act of 2021. 

“I don't want anyone to experience the pain of carbon monoxide, the pain of losing loved ones, the pain of having to live your life advocating for people to please put something simple into your home,” said Burt. “Had we plugged this in, my whole entire life would be so different.”