A WOMAN who suffered Carbon Monoxide and 'should have died' is raising awareness urging people to get gas appliances in their homes checked for defects.

Polly Furse, 47, was at home in New Ash Green with her newborn daughter Lucy, who was four-months-old at the time when they were poisoned by the gas over a two-week period.

It was only when the family started to actually smell gas did they realise something serious was wrong.

Mrs Furse, who now lives in Sevenoaks, said: "I began to start feeling really funny and my body starting to shut down.

"I started to fell really tired and was going to bed at 6pm and just got increasingly more tired.

"I put it down to other reasons and didn't even think it could be the boiler.

"I was getting consistent headaches, losing my sense of smell and taste and getting really vivid recurring nightmares."

When Polly's husband Peter checked on the boiler, which was in an upstairs cupboard, he found flames 'spurting' out of it when the incident happened 13-years-ago.

Gas Safe Register, the UK’s gas safety authority, are urging people to get gas appliances in their homes checked after a new study reveals nine in 10 South East gas consumers cannot identify deadly appliances.

Mrs Furse added: ""A plumber came the next day and they were shocked it had not blown up and they should have been dead.

"We are lucky to be alive."

For more information visit http://www.gassaferegister.co.uk/