Leader: A monitor saves lives

Feb 13 2010 by simon halewood, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

IT is unbelievably six years since the tragic death of Dominic Rodgers.

Six years since his mum, Stacey, made that terrible discovery and found her 10-year-old son dead in bed at their Fartown home, poisoned by deadly carbon monoxide gas leaking from a neighbour’s faulty boiler.

Since then she has campaigned tirelessly to raise awareness of the dangers of carbon monoxide.

Yet many Huddersfield homes – and no doubt the figure will run into tens of thousands – still do not have a carbon monoxide monitor in them.

Fire detectors are commonplace and it is now reasonably rare for firefighters called to house blazes to find a home without one.

The same needs to be the case for carbon monoxide detectors.

After all, if you did have a deadly leak and lost a child or other close relative it is something you would never get over – and the dangers are now more well-known than they were when Dominic died.

Stacey is living with that tragedy every day. The hurt never goes away for her.

She sees Dominic’s friends growing up and he would have been a teenager now, celebrating his 17th birthday in April.

Stacey has somehow summoned up tremendous strength to set up the Dominic Rodgers Trust and take it so far over the last six years.

Without Dominic’s death, many Huddersfield people would possibly still be blissfully unaware of the dangers of carbon monoxide poisoning.

Now they are aware there is no excuse not to have a detector. Get one in Dominic’s memory, knowing it could save your family from a similar tragedy.