The winter I nearly gassed myself

Not many people can say they nearly accidentally killed their mum with a gas heater, but unfortunately can.

It’s distressing to read that portable gas heaters are being sold on Trade Me. Not many people can say they nearly killed themselves and their mum with one, but unfortunately I can.

It was the middle of winter, and we were sitting in the lounge, snuggling in to watching whatever British cop drama we were obsessed with at the time.

I liked to cosy up the living room on dreary winter evenings, swapping overhead lights for lamps, pulling out our many NZ wool lap blankets, and cranking the unflued gas heater all the way up to 11. So, while it was pouring with rain outside, our living room was toasty as.

We settled in to watch DI Worthington uncover the illegal haggis-smuggling ring in his charming seaside town or whatever, and that’s the last thing I remember until I came to some time later, as groggy as a firstyear Otago student the day after Crate Day.

I don’t know what woke me, or how I managed to rouse myself – it was a bit like swimming through treacle, but I remember coming almost fully awake when I looked over at Mum.

I checked with her before sharing this, because it was a terrifying image: She looked like she was dead. Her head was thrown back, her mouth was wide open, and she didn’t wake up when I called to her.

In a panic, I staggered up and opened the living room door. Then I went and shook Mum, and thank God she woke up, and was able to get out of the room. I turned off the heater and, despite the wild weather, we threw open the French doors.

A few seconds of fresh air later and what had nearly happened hit us. We were very lucky.

In 2009, Taumarunui couple, David and Bernadette Otimi, were found dead in a bedroom of their Taupo Rd house after bringing a gas patio heater into their bedroom to heat it.

Two years before, pensioner Neville Gibb was found dead in his home with his portable gas heater still running. A pathologist’s report found Gibb had a 55% blood saturation of carbon monoxide. The fatal level is 50%.

More recently, a coroner found that 90-year-old Albert Wylie died of carbon monoxide poisoning at his St Albans home in 2019. There had been a fault in Wylie’s LPG space heater, and it had not been used within the proper ventilation guidelines. Less than a year later, a leaking gas heater would send six people to hospital in the Waikato. Luckily no one was killed, but the accident sparked renewed calls for a ban on gas heaters.

The thing is, they aren’t even very good at what they’re supposed to do. Gas heaters cause condensation to build up, which can make homes colder overall, as damp air is harder to heat. It’s also been proven that the dampness they can result in respiratory illness in children. And that’s not even tackling the noxious gases they emit. No one in the business likes the things.

Our LPG heater was only a couple of months old when it all went wrong for us. We’d used them for years, but that close call was the end of gas heaters in the Klein-nixon household. I remember mum wheeling it out to the front door. It went to the tip, and we’ve never had one in the house again.

There are still a lot of these kinds of heaters either in use, or sitting in garages waiting to be used. The 2018 census showed there are still 90,000 of these types of heaters in New Zealand households. Some of them have apparently been making their way onto Trade Me for re-sale.

I know heating our homes in winter is hard, but I hope no one has to resort to a secondhand gas heater. In fact, I would urge you not to. They may be cheap to run, but I believe they are a false – and sometimes deadly – economy.