Jeana Eisenhauer can still hear her mother screaming at the sight of her father lying motionless on the floor of their garage in Valley View Estates, Albrightsville.
Editor's note: Donations to help Ember Hardy, 7, can be sent to: Children's Seashore House, ATTN: Ember Hardy, Room 306, 3405 Civic Center Boulevard, Philadelphia, PA 19104.
"My mom came home from work, saw my dad on the floor and screamed out, 'He's not breathing,'" Eisenhauer said. "I heard her scream, I ran up from the basement out into the garage and saw my dad had collapsed. My mom had started doing CPR while I called 911. Then, I took over CPR until the ambulance arrived."
"We knew my dad wasn't gonna make it by the time the EMTs got there," Eisenhauer said.
Her father, Lammert Roodhof, 66, was pronounced dead later in the evening of Oct. 30 at Gnaden Huetten Hospital in Lehighton, a victim of carbon monoxide poisoning from a gasoline-powered generator he'd been using since Hurricane Sandy had knocked out power the day before.
Prolonged exposure to CO, an invisible, odorless gas emitted by use of gasoline-, kerosene- or diesel-powered machinery, can cause illness, internal injuries and even death.
Eisenhauer herself felt ill from exposure that day, but said she has suffered no debilitating after-effects since then.
But her mother, Ann Roodhof, now has permanent heart damage while her 7-year-old daughter, Ember Hardy, has brain damage.
"Ember had been playing somewhere in the house before my dad collapsed, but I didn't know where she was when the trouble started," Eisenhauer said. "I looked for her while my dad was being loaded into the ambulance, but couldn't find her. It was one of the EMTs who found her curled up between two chairs in the garage, near where my dad had collapsed.
"She was unconscious and not breathing or responding," she said.
As it turned out, Ember wasn't completely unresponsive as she had first appeared, but was having severe difficulty breathing. She was rushed to Gnaden Huetten Hospital, where her grandfather was taken, and a tube was inserted down her throat to open her airway.
Once doctors realized the lack of oxygen had damaged parts of her brain, she was immediately flown to Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and has been there ever since.
Eisenhauer has been by Ember's side around the clock every day since then.
"She can't stand, walk, go to the bathroom or do anything else on her own," Eisenhauer said by phone from the hospital. "She can't feed herself or swallow or bathe herself. She has to learn to talk all over again. The only word she can say is 'mom,' and it took her three weeks just to be able to say that."
Ember, who suffered uncontrollable muscle spasms from the brain damage, needs help just to sit up in bed, but is now able to hold herself up and turn her head.
"They do various kinds of physical, occupational and speech therapy with her every day, but the doctors right now don't know if she'll ever make a full recovery," Eisenhauer said. "Nov. 2 was her seventh birthday, and she spent it here in the hospital. We're praying she'll be able to enjoy her next birthday at home."
After spending more than 10 years working with special-needs children, Eisenhauer lost her job last year and was forced to move in with her parents, who had bought the generator long before Hurricane Sandy even appeared in the forecast.
This was the first time they had ever had to use the generator for a significant amount of time.
"My dad had the generator outside of the garage and was using several extension cords which ran from the generator through the garage, through the kitchen and downstairs into the basement," Eisenhauer said. "The generator was one to two feet from the garage, which we at the time thought was a safe distance but now know wasn't. We were later told it was close enough for the fumes to come right through the open doors into the house."
At the time, the house had working CO detectors that went off, "but we thought it was the smoke alarms going off since they both sound similar," Eisenhauer said.
Eisenhauer now wants others to be aware of the dangers of CO exposure, along with the importance of safe generator use and having properly working CO alarms in the home.
"People need to make sure their families are protected," Eisenhauer said. "My father is gone and my daughter is suffering. I wouldn't want to see that happen to anyone else."