The temperature was supposed to be in the teens with a few inches of snow, just another typical winter day in the Twin Cities area of Minnesota.
The Johnson household was scrambling to get the kids off to school and Pete and Jennifer were already running late for work.
It did not seem like anyone had slept very well last nite, and their son Jeremy complained about not feeling very well.
Jeremy had an important test to take at school that day so he decided to go nevertheless.
By mid afternoon Jeremy and his sister Jane arrived home from school.
Jeremy was feeling better and decided to watch some cartoons until he had to go to hockey practice that evening.
After eating dinner however, Jeremy was not feeling all that well anymore and asked if he could not go to practice that evening.
In fact, during dinner, every one mentioned they were not feeling very well and felt like they had the chills.
Jennifer turned up the thermostat and every one went to bed early.
The next morning was Saturday.
Fortunately nobody had any big plans that day because the whole family had come down with what seemed to be the flu.
By early afternoon every one was very ill and vomiting.
Something just did not seem right to Jennifer so she decided to call he mother Dianne who was a nurse.
She told Jennifer she would pick up a few things from the store and come over and try to help out a little bit.
Upon arriving, she asked Dianne asked why they had the furnace turned down so low, but Jennifer insisted she had already turned the thermostat up twice.
Dianne could tell Jennifer was not thinking very clearly, in fact the whole house seemed to be in a confused state of mind.
Dianne decided to check the thermostat and it was indeed turned up.
She then went down to the basement to see what was going on with the furnace.
The furnace was on, but she had been at the house for an hour already and the house should have warmed up by then.
In fact, it seemed rather warm around the furnace but nowhere else in the home.
Not being an expert on furnaces, Dianne decided to call the furnace company to see if she could get someone out to check the furnace.
She started feeling a headache coming on as she waited on the phone for the furnace company.
Then, as she was explaining the situation to the representative, she was told get herself and everyone out of the house immediately.
Quickly, she told Jennifer and Jeremy to get dressed, they may have a gas leak in the house.
They tried to wake the children, but to their horror they were unresponsive.
immediately they called 911.
The ambulance arrived and everyone went to the hospital.
They had been poisoned by the colorless, odorless, silent killer, Carbon Monoxide! Fortunately, later on in the evening, the whole family had Blood/CO2 levels that were back to normal and they could leave the hospital.
After speaking with the furnace company, Jennifer discovered what had happened and could not believe it.
Of all things, a crow had fallen down their furnace flue and caused the exhaust to back up into the house.
Like anything, crows like to stay warm.
What better place to hang out than atop a chimney with all the nice warm air coming out.
Too bad there was also carbon monoxide coming out the chimney which caused the bird to fall asleep and plunge down the flue.
The moral of the story is this.
If you do not have a chimney cover on your furnace flue, get one on there now.
Do not buy the inexpensive kind either.
Make sure you get the kind that will keep out birds and also squirrels.
Furthermore, get your furnace inspected every heating season, and get it cleaned if it is dirty.
And remember, just something as simple as a bird trying to stay warm could have seriously injured or even killed this family.