A GRILL on a gas cooker almost cost Jackie Swallow her life.
Carbon monoxide had a devastating impact on her health.
So much so that at one point doctors thought she had been struck down with a life-threatening disease.
She later discovered her symptoms were so bad she came close to death.
Now she has spoken out to support the Examiner's Beware The Silent Killer campaign, to warn others of the potential dangers.
And she is particularly anxious for doctors to be aware of the symptoms of carbon monoxide (CO).
Jackie, 68, and her husband, John, 67, bought the Chatelin Cordon Bleu cooker when they moved into a house on Longley Road in Almondbury.
They hardly ever used the grill until last summer, when their toaster broke down.
The grill is at eye-level with Jackie, who is just under 5ft tall - and she does all the cooking.
"I started to feel very lethargic and tired, which was just not like me at all," she said.
"I knew there was something wrong with my body."
Jackie went to see her GP, who warned her it could be the symptoms of a serious underlying disease, such as cancer or multiple sclerosis.
Jackie was sent for some blood tests, but they showed nothing.
The couple then spent three weeks on holiday in France and Jackie came back feeling great.
But within days her health had deteriorated again - and this time it kept getting worse and worse.
Soon she was virtually bedridden.
"I had such little energy I could hardly turn over in bed," she said. "I had terrible headaches, was dizzy and had pain across my lungs."
Family and friends became increasingly worried and more blood tests were done. But again nothing else showed up.
The couple had a carbon monoxide detector in the lounge and one day took it into the kitchen.
"It immediately gave out a piercing shrill - so loud we had to throw it into the garden," said Jackie. "We called British Gas. An engineer came and immediately condemned the cooker.
"The thing is that British Gas used to always check all the gas appliances in the home, but stopped checking ovens some time ago."
Suddenly, everything made sense.
And when the couple researched the effects and symptoms of CO poisoning Jackie realised how desperately ill she had been.
"I was sleeping more or less 24 hours a day," said Jackie. "The next stage would have been death."
Her health has improved dramatically.
"I'm more or less back to my old self," she said. "I don't want anyone else to go through what I did and I want doctors to know the symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning."
The gas cooker was replaced with an electric one.
But it does not end there. This cooker is giving off acrid fumes and the couple are battling with its makers to solve the problem.
But that's another story ...
