We had a pretty scary experience this past week. We had been out with friends for the entire evening, and came home about 10:00pm. The second I entered the hallway of our apartment building, I smelled major natural gas. It was pretty strong. I unlocked the door to our apartment, opened it, and the smell became about ten times stronger.
“The gas is coming from our apartment, honey,” I said to my husband. He went inside, and discovered that a burner on our gas stove was leaking gas. I immediately freaked out. The first thing that went through my head was, “My baby is breathing all of this gas as we stand here.” Other thoughts that followed were, “I wonder how long this burner has been leaking,” “We have no idea how much gas is in the air,” “Any little spark could cause an explosion.” I was holding our baby, and ran outside to get some fresh air, and also to call 911. Thankfully, it was pretty warm outside (and by warm, I mean above freezing).
Was I overreacting by calling 911? It is very likely. If we didn’t have a baby, I would have been much more willing to open the windows and turn fans on to air everything out. However, I’m so much more cautious now that we have a little one. If my husband and I die, I can live with that, because we are both adults who make our own decisions. If I cause my baby to die, I don’t know if I could live with myself.
At any rate, a bunch of cop cars came, a few fire trucks, and an ambulance. They got everyone out of our building and ran some tests to find out what had caused the leak and how much gas was in the air. Our whole street was blocked off and lit up with the flashing lights.
While the firemen did their thing in our building, the E.M.T. tested our little girl to make sure her oxygen levels were okay, and, thankfully, they were. She got to hang out in the back of a cop car for awhile to keep warm, then upgraded to the back of the ambulance. Everyone I spoke to (besides our grumpy neighbors who were beyond mad that they had to leave their apartments) assured me that calling 911 had been the right thing to do, especially with a baby.
You may be wondering what the negative effects of having natural gas in your living environment are. For one thing, natural gas interferes with your body’s ability to absorb oxygen. Adults are able to know if there is enough gas to negatively affect them, because it produces a headache and nausea. However, with a baby who cannot talk, it could be difficult to tell whether we had sufficiently aired everything out. The second major issue is that natural gas is extremely flammable. It can cause explosions.
What was the outcome of all of this? The firemen found the sources of the gas (a burner on our stove, as we thought), turned it off, determined that it wasn’t dangerous, and we all went to bed.
So, our neighbors are irritated with us, and we caused quite a commotion, but I’m okay with it. Even if we didn’t have a baby, I probably still would have called. With a baby, though, I know it was the right thing to do. I’m learning more and more than, as a parent, my job isn’t to please everyone else – it’s to protect, nurture, and do what I think is best for my child.