Local resident Barbara Hammershoy woke up early on the morning of Jan. 21 to an annoying headache and the smell of fumes. Both she, a math teacher in the Levittown School District and her son, a student at East Broadway, had the day off and when she attempted to go back to bed after her husband left for work, her son Adam decided to join her. After calling her oil company and being told not to worry about the fumes, she attempted to go back to sleep but 8-year-old Adam kept nudging her to wake up. Luckily, waking up his mother wasn't the only thing Adam was persistent about that day.

When she noticed the odd odor in the house, which she said resembled the fumes in the air when one gets an oil delivery, she thought the worst.

"You know when you smell something odd you think the worst ... and I don't know why but I was concerned about it being carbon monoxide," she said.

The oil company apparently told Hammershoy the same thing many people hear, that carbon monoxide does not emit an odor, a fact that she later learned is not necessarily true. She was also told that due to the recent heavy snow fall, nobody would be sent to her home because that particular day was being saved for "emergencies." She was told somebody would come to her house the following evening.

"After I got off the phone with them, I really just wanted to go back to sleep, but [Adam] wouldn't let me," she said. Luckily Adam, who at one point that morning had wandered down to the family's basement, heard a strange beeping sound and ran up to inform his mom. The two were alone in the house.

"Our carbon monoxide detector is in the basement. I was making his breakfast in the kitchen and then I just wanted to go back to bed [but] he kept telling me he heard a beeping downstairs," she said. "I kept telling him it was probably the trucks outside, backing up, cleaning the roads - but he was persistent."

And it's a good thing he was. After urging his mother three times to check on the sound, Hammershoy went over to the basement door and immediately realized that it was the carbon monoxide detector going off, which she couldn't hear upstairs with the basement door closed. As soon as she realized the source of the beeping, she and Adam ran outside and called authorities.

Hammershoy said that the Wantagh Fire Department was wonderful and that the fire chief was also very proud of her son.

"The level [of carbon monoxide] in the house was quite high - the fire department told us the normal is zero, 19 is considered dangerous and we had 88," she said, adding that she and Adam had to be administered oxygen and taken to the hospital. "The hospital said that in another hour we would have probably been unconscious."

Hammershoy said that she learned a few lessons from this incident. One that she was surprised to find out was that carbon monoxide can in fact have an odor.

"I always thought it was odorless, but the Wantagh Fire Chief told me that if there's a backup in the oil tank, it can create an odor," she said, adding that she's also realized the importance of having a carbon monoxide detector on every level of her home. "Now I'm really trying to get the word out about these detectors. You think it can't happen to you - but it can happen so easily."

Hammershoy added that the day of the incident, her house was swarming with various media outlets hoping to speak with her and Adam. She said that he was initially very excited about speaking with people but after several hours just looked forward to playing in the snow the following day. She also noted that he has been quite proud of the recognition he's been getting in school and said that his principal put on a demonstration with him and that he's being honored by the board of education. The family even received a call from Senator Schumer's office, who said he wanted to present Adam with a New York State Liberty Medal.

"He was very excited the first day, but by that night he just wanted the next day to play in the snow. He was getting a little tired of the spotlight, but he was very excited when kids in school were asking for his autograph," Hammershoy said. "I'm just glad that he was so persistent. If I had listened to [the oil company] and went back to bed like I wanted to, it would've been a different story."