Grieving dads want mandatory carbon monoxide detectors

The grieving fathers of two girls who died from carbon monoxide poisoning last year have taken to social media to urge authorities to make detectors mandatory.

“We want our daughters’ deaths to have meaning by saving other lives,” Jan Snel and Patrick Roest wrote on their new Facebook page. Their aim is to get at least 50,000 likes, which they will then take to The Hague to demand action from Government. Their daughters died when carbon monoxide escaped ruing their slumber party on January 12 2012. Snel and Roest hint that every year some 15 people die from similar accidents. “(Our daughters were) such sweet, healthy girls, killed by something that could have been prevented with a €25 detector. Everything else gets attention; why doesn’t this?” So far their initiative has gotten 13,000 likes. Carbon monoxide is used in everyday households in heating systems and ovens and can escape when these get damaged or during fires. It is extremely dangerous in nature, because it enters the bloodstream 250 times faster than oxygen.