By Brian McGillivary and Alex Piazza
The Record-Eagle
KINGSLEY, Mich — Matt Schelich can’t recall what raced through his mind as he rushed into a friend’s home to find a family unconscious, robbed of air by a faulty furnace.
“I don’t know what I thought, I don’t even know if I breathed,” said Schelich, who teaches at Kingsley High School. “The adrenaline just kicks in and we started getting people out of the house.”
Schelich and Matt Nausadis, Kingsley’s high school principal, pulled Bruce and Aerin Graves, their two young sons and two dogs from their home Monday morning. Their actions saved the lives of a friend and co-worker whose family fell victim to carbon monoxide poisoning.
Bruce and Aerin Graves were flown to Spectrum Health in Grand Rapids, where both were admitted in critical condition. Their conditions were upgraded to fair on Tuesday.
Their children, Owen, 6, and Ely, 3, were discharged from Munson Medical Center Tuesday following treatment for carbon monoxide poisoning.
Intuition and a willingness to act saved four lives. Schelich and Nausadis said Monday morning’s events alerted them that something wasn’t quite right.
Bruce Graves didn’t show up for a class he co-taught with Schelich, then someone from Munson Medical Center called the school in an attempt to locate Aerin, a lead teacher at their day care center.
Nausadis then learned that Owen, a first-grader, didn’t show up for school.
“Something just went off in my head,” Schelich said. “Another friend had talked earlier about how they had just turned on their heat for the first time this year. Call it a strong hunch ... but I knew.”
Schelich ran for his car, shouting his concerns. Nausadis joined him.
They arrived at Graves’ house in south Grand Traverse County around 8:30 a.m. and saw both cars in the driveway, but no one answered when they knocked on the front door.
Schelich entered through an unlocked door, and immediately yelled to Nausadis to call 911.
A haze hung in the house, and a strong, foul odor told them they needed to get the family to fresh air.
“Honestly, there’s no way to comprehend what my thoughts were right then. We just immediately went into action,” Nausadis said. “We knew their lives were in danger, but we also knew our lives were too, the longer we were in that house.”
They kicked out a door close to the bedroom and removed all four to the back yard. It took both men to remove Bruce Graves.
“We talked about it later, how we were relieved we had two men who were able to remove the bodies and get them out into the backyard,” Nausadis said. “I’m just very thankful that we were in the right place at the right time.”
A dead bird was found in a chimney attached to a 40-year-old hot water boiler that heated the house, Schelich said. He believes Bruce or Aerin turned on the furnace for the first time Sunday night, and fell asleep before fumes rerouted by the blocked chimney moved up from the basement and into the house.
‘Breathing and alive’
The Schelich and Graves families are close, and Matt distinctly remembers one moment as his friends lay stretched out on the yard before him.
“I was just really relieved to find four people alive in that house, relieved that they were breathing and alive, ... that they were hanging onto life,” Schelich said. “At that point it was out of my hands. I was just waiting for the sound of ambulances.”
The boys recovered quickly, but Bruce and Aerin were treated in a hyperbaric chamber at Spectrum.
Carbon monoxide is a clear, odorless gas created as a by-product of combustion. Poisoning occurs when carbon monoxide particles attach to hemoglobin in the bloodstream, replacing oxygen. The hyperbaric chamber helps push oxygen back into the body, said Richard Hodgson, director of the hyperbaric medicine program at Spectrum.
“It offers you 100 times more oxygen than normal,” Hodgson said. “Hyperbaric has an effect that regular oxygen doesn’t.”
The two boys are doing fine and are staying at Schelich’s house with one of the rescued dogs. The other dog remains at the vet and is not doing well.
Bruce and Aerin are stable, but Schelich said there are “still more unanswered questions than answers” about their recovery.
Bruce Graves taught social studies for about a dozen years, and also is the school’s varsity baseball coach.
“He is well-thought of and a highly respected teacher in this community,” Nausadis said.
Aerin is a lead teacher at Munson’s employee day care program.
Wendy Hicks said Aerin Graves is a “tremendous” person and teacher for her 3-year-old daughter, Abigail. Hicks said Abigail considers Aerin her “special friend,” and not just a teacher.
Helping friends
Kingsley teachers immediately started a campaign to help buy the family a new furnace, and to assist with professional house-cleaning, vet bills and any medical costs not covered by insurance.
Teachers and school staff also worked on house cleanup and plan to return over the weekend to tend to yard work.
A local contractor rearranged his schedule to replace the furnace Tuesday. Schelich said he doesn’t know if carbon monoxide detectors were in the home, but they’ll have two when the family returns.
“We want to arrange for a warm, safe home for them to come back to because we think it’s going to be emotionally difficult for them to come back to their house after what happened,” Schelich said. “I’m talking to all of the (school) staff and telling them to take out a $50 or $100 bill, go buy a carbon monoxide detector for their own home, and then donate the change.”