Slice of Life: It Could’ve Been Much Worse

“The car in the garage next door is running, but the garage is closed. It was like that when I left and still running when I got back.” My husband said this in the two minutes I had before my class started at 5:30am.

I don’t exactly know why I hesitated to call the police. Was it hope that maybe the neighbor would come back and find the situation and fix it? I certainly hoped it was just a short time that the car had been running. And I definitely hoped that they would not come find a dead body in that garage.

“Well, I have classes to teach. I will see what happens and maybe call the police if it doesn’t get better,” I replied to my husband. VIPKid as a company is quite the stickler for promptness. So, I proceeded into the office and started my class. It was the typical class with Dorith. She was being super silly and trying her hardest not to follow the class content. No big deal on a normal morning, but this morning I was a little distracted and probably a lot less patient.

And then. I smelled it in my office. All of the sudden, the smell was all I could think about. I finished my class and immediately dialed the phone. It was now 6am.

The Response

I felt like such an idiot when the dispatcher asked if I had tried to contact the neighbor. No, I had not tried. But at least they took me seriously and got a squad car to respond immediately. The two cops that responded were very nice. I explained what we knew and they saw the situation and went to try to contact the neighbor.

I went back inside and left them to it. Then, we heard the garage door opening and watched as the smoke that had built up in that garage billowed into the sky. There were waves and waves of smoke and if I thought I smelled it before, that was nothing compared to now.

The cops knocked at my door and thanked me. They told me that the neighbor had some story about the car supposedly being an automatic car and how he put the car in park and thought the car was off when he went into his apartment at MIDNIGHT. That car was running in a closed garage for 6 hours!

The fire department responded immediately. My poor neighbors were mostly still sleeping and woke up to police and fire department members pounding on their doors to bring the carbon monoxide monitor around. When they came into our apartment, my office had read outs of 90ppm. We were told to get some warm clothes on and come outside. It was not safe for us to be in our apartment.

Safety Checks

Carbon monoxide levels were too high in almost every apartment in our building. Everyone went outside to wait as they aired out our apartments and the Fire department’s industrial strength fans ran. This is when I realized that it was good that I had not knocked on the neighbor’s door. I would not have thought of the carbon monoxide levels. I would have just been relieved that there wasn’t a dead body in that garage.

Although it was the beginning of February, the temperature was a balmy 30 degrees, so we could stay relatively comfortable in our winter gear. I was thankful for that as well. (Had it been a mere 3 days later, it would have been in the middle of a wind chill advisory)

It was 7:45am before we could enter the building again. Two people were checked out in an ambulance but no one needed to be transported to the hospital. We were all okay. The idiot who left his car running in the garage was okay. The babies and pets were okay.

I think we saved some lives. And it certainly could have been so much worse. I will not hesitate if I am ever in this situation again.