When Heidi Stamper was woken up a second time by the family's screeching cat, she knew something was seriously wrong. "If it wasn't for Thor, we wouldn't be here. He saved our lives."
Thor the kitten, a Michigan family’s pet, has lived up to his superhero name after saving them from carbon monoxide poisoning.
Heidi Stamper's home in Farmington Hills had lost power, so she was running a portable generator in her garage. What she didn’t know was that her husband and two kids were also being poisoned by the odorless, colorless gas.
“About 1:45 in the morning, the cat started screaming and it woke me up,” Stamper said.
Thor was ill, so Stamper took him outside. When the fresh air hit, Thor seemed to recover, so she took him back inside and fell back asleep.
“Half an hour later, the cat started screaming again and it woke me up, but this time, I had sweat through all my clothes. I wasn’t able to move. I felt really sick to my stomach,” Stamper said.
The home was not equipped with a carbon monoxide detector, but luckily, they had Thor. With all of the screeching and commotion going on, the kids woke up and called 911.
“Thor played a crucial role in saving the family of four. All four of them were suffering severe effects of carbon monoxide poisoning,” Farmington Hills Fire Chief Jon Unruh said.
"Just the thought that I wouldn't be here to see my kids, that's really scary,” an emotional Stamper said. "If it wasn't for Thor, we wouldn't be here. He saved our lives."
As soon as the family got out of the hospital, they put in carbon monoxide detectors.
