Your Car as Silent Killer: Up Close and Personal with the Dangers of Carbon Monoxide Poisoning from a Faulty Car Exhaust

If you believe the only dangers from your car are the obvious ones, think again. Some of the most perilous potential for illness or death from your car can come from substances you cannot see, smell, or taste. For example, emissions that occur as a natural part of your car's combustible engine can produce deadly side effects in anyone sitting in your car or standing in close proximity when you run your car in a closed garage. Nor do you need weak or already sick to be felled by the problems such lethal gases can bring on.

Once you read my story here, look for other Associated Content articles, penned by myself and other authors, regarding car emissions. Armed with this information, you will hopefully be inspired - if not terrified - into checking your car carefully then repairing and maintaining your car, truck, or SUV in the best ways possible.

My brush with car-related tragedy started out like too many others do. As an impoverished graduate student with little money to spend on car repair or maintenance, I drove around an aged Honda that was in pretty rough shape. When the muffler ripped away after driving into a pothole, a friend helped me wire the muffler and its tailpipe back into place until I could come up with the money to replace it. The repair made the car run more quietly, but it also set up a nasty situation that cost me months of health and not an insubstantial amount of terror.

A few weeks after the makeshift repair of the muffler, I noticed I was getting far more headaches than usual. This I attributed to my frantic work and school schedule and the hours I spent in my car each day making a 120-mile commute. Then the symptoms worsened sharply and suddenly: I would sometimes lose the ability to speak or perform basic motor functions. I often lost my balance and began to suffer from blackouts.