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Couple Survives Carbon Monoxide Scare

HUGHESTOWN — A couple in Luzerne County is getting a new heating system after a frightening carbon monoxide scare. Paramedics feared a woman died after he...

HUGHESTOWN -- A couple in Luzerne County is getting a new heating system after a frightening carbon monoxide scare.

Paramedics feared a woman died after her furnace malfunctioned.

She survived and they are now sharing their story as a warning to others.

Beverly and John Langhorne have been married for 56 years, living inside a home in Hughestown.

But everything almost ended Monday afternoon when Beverly got dizzy while getting ready for work.

"I sat back in the chair just to relax a little bit. That's all I remember," she said.

While Beverly passed out, John said he got dizzy and barely made it outside with their Basset hound named Buddy.

"I was crawling on the grass to get back in the house. So I finally got back in the house and I got the phone and I dialed 911," John Langhorne said.

The Langhornes say they recently had their heating system inspected, but something still went wrong. The batteries inside their carbon monoxide detector had died, so there was nothing to warn them about the colorless, odorless gas billowing inside their home.

"He said 'John, I'm sorry about your wife.' I thought she died!"

John says paramedics feared his wife died in their house but she survived.

The problem was a carbon monoxide leak from a 28-year-old cast iron hot water unit used to heat the home.

The family turned to Leonard Martin of C.W. Shultz and Sons Heating and Air Conditioning to correct that problem with the unit.

"As you can see, this one has been sealed up by whomever cleaned it last time. But he couldn't get down to the sides, and that's where the opening is down inside some place."

He says the Langhornes need a new heating system and they're lucky this didn't turn out much worse.

"Boy, yeah, we could have been going to the viewing, yeah, that's for darn sure," Martin said.

"When I seen my husband for the first time that night I said 'Honey,' I said 'that man upstairs was with us today.' He was."

The Langhornes now have a new carbon monoxide detector that plugs into the wall and also has backup batteries.

They hope their story will remind others to check their detector batteries and to get a routine furnace inspection.

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