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TRANSCRIPT

BRIAN:
Are you one of the many families, couples and singles currently enjoying a more mobile lifestyle? A bit like us I guess.  Well congratulations.  We love it too.  And like you, we're constantly learning, for example, do you have a carbon monoxide alarm?

KAYE:
Well, we do. But we didn't realise how this invisible odourless gas carbon monoxide can have a delayed impact on a person causing them to crash after falling asleep while driving. One brave couple who survived that ordeal comparatively recently wanted their tale told in the hopes that others would avoid making the same mistake.

BRIAN:
Now, to talk about that, we have on the line, Ken Wilson from the Truck Friendly program. G'day Ken, (g'day Brian). . .  what causes a car and a caravan to roll over for a medical reason?

KEN:
In this particular case, we had a couple who wanted to share their story to help prevent other people for making the same mistake. Now, these people have sort of admitted that they've made a mistake and wanted to make sure that other people were aware of the problem. In their case, they were in a location in the early morning was about six degrees in their caravan. I understand.

And while they're preparing breakfast and getting ready, they turned the oven on the gas oven on and that warmed the caravan up inside to around about a nice, pleasant sort of 24 degrees. Shortly after eating breakfast, they hooked up and went on their way to their next overnight stop. Shortly after, the husband fell asleep at the wheel and his wife noticed that and woke him up. He missed a guide post and over-corrected. And that caused the caravan to jack knife.

And it was a very near death experience for these people. And it was caused by carbon monoxide poisoning. And now from what I can gather, and I'm certainly no expert on this, but the carbon monoxide can stay in your body for quite some time and it eventually leaches out. Now, in this case, the effects were slightly delayed on them. Maybe it was because he was doing physical activity and that and didn't notice that he was getting a bit drowsy and he fell asleep at the wheel. So the lesson here is and I'm certainly going to be going out and purchasing a carbon monoxide detector to put in your van. Some have some standard, some don't.

BRIAN:
Yeah, we've got one in ours yea. . .

KEN:
So it's just a an extra safety feature and it's just a lesson to say, ‘hey, don't use your oven in your van without some kind of ventilation’. Make sure that it is fully vented and only use approved products for heating your caravan. Now on social media, they copped a lot of flack saying, you know, how stupid and so on and so forth. and there should be signs all over the caravans to say not to do it. The point was that these people had voluntarily shared their story to help prevent it from happening with other people. So you know, they should be commended. Not criticised on social media (keyboard warriors!)Yeah, they hide behind profile and put their two bobs worth in. And I like to sort of stop and think for a minute before I type anything. And I've always said if you're going to put anything on social media, if you're not going to stand on a street corner and yell it out, don't do it and do it. More people are going to see it on social media then we'll hear it on a street corner.

BRIAN:
Well look I think people can do their own research as well about some of the effects of that gas. That carbon monoxide. It should be made clear that in fact, smoke detectors. The reason they're in the ceiling, of course, is that smoke rises, but the carbon monoxide alarms they're down and below. . .  ours is mounted just below the stove, the oven here. And the idea is that if there is a leak around that area it'll hopefully detect it.

And I won't say downside, but as a side issue with that, I have noticed that if I didn't wash my feet for a couple of days or I had smelly shoes or something, you'd get BEEP BEEP BEEP! We can look into that and maybe you could adjust the sensitivity of it. I don't know, (just your feet maybe!) but look, that's a good warning and good on those people for posting that.

It was probably very embarrassing for the driver, but thank goodness that they got out of it. Okay. The caravan I saw it was on the side. The car was totally trashed.

KEN:
Yea and another thing too is a lot of caravans have vents low down in the doors, which is one of the lowest points in the caravan. So with Carbon Monoxide being heavier. I'm assuming that that is a release for those sort of gases. . .

BRIAN:
It's also a lovely little window for our doggy. She loves looking out the bottom vent!

KEN:
Yeah, I've seen a lot of people close them up because they don't want dust getting into the caravan and so on and so forth. So it's like disconnecting your brakes 'cos you don't want the car to stop!

BRIAN:
Exactly. Alrighty, another safety tip therefrom Truck Friendly. And if you've got any comments about that, please keep them within line to the topic rather than having a go. at the people that posted that original one because any ideas that people have got are always welcome.

KEN:
Thanks very much for your time, Brian.

BRIAN:
Alright, thanks again Bye.

KAYE:
My heart goes out to that lovely couple that braved the social media to actually say, well, we made a mistake and we don't want anyone else to make that mistake.

BRIAN:
Exactly. Look, we're all new to this or we can all learn something every day. So for people to say silly things like, Oh, they should have done this I should you don't. You don't need that.

KAYE:
And Ken is such a caring person Truck Friendly program is great if you haven't seen it. But, seriously, lots of great advice there. He really does care about us all getting home at night. Wherever home might be.

BRIAN:
Absolutely.

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