Cats help save woman from poison
BY KATHY BARATTA Staff Writer

FREEHOLD TOWNSHIP - Two faithful feline friends are being credited with saving not only each other, but Rose Forte, too, with whom they share a home in the Silvermead adult community off Jackson Mills Road.

Forte, 72, said she has been a resident of Silvermead for 30 years. However, her gas furnace is not an original and was installed in her home in 1991. That is why she was surprised to learn that the furnace had developed a crack and was leaking lethal carbon monoxide into the home she shares with her cats, Pepper and Queenie.

Carbon monoxide is an odorless, colorless gas. Experts recommend that a carbon monoxide detector be installed in the home to warn residents of the presence of the gas.

Although Forte is not happy about the fact that she will have to spend $2,400 to replace the furnace, she is, of course, delighted that thanks to Pepper and Queenie she is alive and well enough to make the purchase.

According to Forte, she was awakened at about 8:30 a.m. Oct. 15 by Queenie, who was jumping on her chest. Forte said that as she struggled to sit up she was wondering why Queenie was acting so uncharacteristically. At the same time, she said, she heard Pepper crying loudly in the hall outside her bedroom.

At the same time she was struggling to breathe and her eyes were stinging. Forte said she grabbed a telephone, dialed 911 and told the dispatcher that she had been awakened by her cats and was finding the air in her home too choking to breathe.

Forte said emergency responders were at her home in five minutes.

Freehold Township police Capt. James Lasky said the responding personnel included police officers Jack Mandala and Nicole Pellerito along with members of the Freehold Township Independent Fire Company, the Freehold First Aid and Emergency Squad and a representative from the New Jersey Natural Gas Company.

According to Forte and Lasky, monitoring equipment indicated that the carbon monoxide level in the home was in the lethal range of 500 parts per million.

Forte said the gas company representative told her that if another 15 minutes had gone by without Forte waking up, she and the cats would have died.

Forte said she is telling her story because she wants to remind people about the importance of checking the batteries not only in their home's smoke detectors, but in their carbon monoxide detector as well.

"I'm embarrassed to say it, but I forgot to check the batteries" in the carbon monoxide detector, said Forte, acknowledging a mistake that she said she is not likely to make again.

She wants to make certain that the lesson she learned is shared with others.

Lasky said the coming of daylight savings time is a good time to remind people that the time change is the perfect time to check the batteries in any smoke detector or carbon monoxide detector in their home.

Forte said she, too, wants to remind everyone to make the battery checks in their home since in doing so no one will have to rely solely on a perceptive pet to do the life-saving.