Desborough woman whose family were hospitalised with carbon monoxide poisoning urging others to get alarms
Amanda Handy's family were hospitalised with carbon monoxide poisoning after a Mother’s Day gathering.
Last updated 16th Oct 2025
A woman from Desborough whose family survived carbon monoxide poisoning is urging others to get an alarm.
On Mother’s Day 2013, Amanda Handy's family got together to lay flowers at her mother’s favourite spot. Two weeks previously she had lost her battle with cancer.
Shortly after returning to her step-dads home with the family, Amanda began experiencing a severe headache, but put that down the strain of the previous two weeks after losing her mother.
"Over Sunday lunch, my daughter just went straight downhill. She was slumped over the kitchen table. We'd all got flu like symptoms, headaches just really feeling very, very lethargic, not realising obviously at the time, what it was. I just put it down to stress."
During dinner, Amanda’s youngest daughter also complained of a headache and dizziness and could hardly lift her head off the kitchen table. With this in mind, Amanda thought it best to take her two daughters home.
About 2 hours after arriving at home, Amanda received a phonecall from her step-dad saying he had found his daughter asleep at the kitchen table and could now smell gas so had called the gas board. She soon realised her family could be suffering carbon monoxide poisoning and quickly called 111 for advice where they were told to switch off the boiler, leave the house and go to hospital
"The best decision that day was to leave the house. Even the doctors did told us at the hospital, if I'd have let my daughter fall asleep in the house, we'd all have probably fallen asleep with her, nobody would be here to tell the tale."
Results from the blood tests revealed that Amanda had 10% CO in her blood stream, the step-dad 30% and the step-sister 70%.
The gas board came out the following day to test the boiler that was confirmed as faulty.
Rise in carbon monoxide poisoning
Research from Project SHOUT, the national campaign to raise awareness of the dangers of carbon monoxide poisoning, shows cases have doubled since 2020, with a suspected 10,000 already this year alone.
Often called the “silent killer,” carbon monoxide can’t be seen, smelled, or tasted — and campaigners say the surge is being fuelled by families struggling to afford appliance repairs and skipping safety checks.
Project SHOUT is warning that one £20 alarm could be the difference between life and death.
A recent survey of gas engineers by Project SHOUT found that over a third of engineers (37%) come across poorly maintained appliances in people’s homes every week.
Fire Safety Advisor with Northamptonshire Fire & Rescue, Trevor Potter says boilers are often the culprit for leaks. He recommends alarms above your boiler:
"It's not a given that having your boiler serviced every year will prevent it Carbon monoxide leaks happening. It's not a given, it can happen at any time.
"That alarm will alert you to a carbon monoxide leak. You can't smell it, you can't taste it. You can't see it. You need something to let you know it's in the air."
He says if you breathe it in, it can make you very unwell over a long period of time or very short period of time:
"We recommend that you get a British kite marked carbon monoxide alarm from reputable company and they provide them now with A10 year sealed battery unit. It's very, very important and also near open fires."
Common sources of CO are gas and oil boilers, gas hobs and fires, log burners and open fires. There have even been cases of deaths from BBQs.
You can find more advice on Project SHOUT and Northamptonshire Fire & Rescue's websites.