12 September 2011 Last updated at 04:42 ET

Gas body urges appliance checks in Cornwall

People in Cornwall are being warned to get gas appliances checked by the UK's official gas registration body.

The call comes after a woman from north Cornwall suffered low-level Carbon Monoxide poisoning.

Joyce Bridgewater, from Camelford, will have to use a wheelchair for the rest of her life after breathing in the odourless gas for a decade.

Ms Bridgewater said she had always had her boiler serviced but never her cooker or fire.

'Post-traumatic stress'

Over a period of 10 years, she lived with low levels of Carbon Monoxide, and the colourless odourless gas slowly poisoned her.

Ms Bridgewater said: "I had a heart attack in 2002. I was dreadfully ill between 2002 and 2005. I realised the air quality had a bearing on how well I felt.

"I looked up the symptoms I had, with dizziness, sickness, and it said on the internet it was possibly carbon monoxide poisoning."

Soon after she was officially diagnosed.

She said: "I kept going home to a poisonous atmosphere. I still suffer from post-traumatic stress. When I speak about it, it brings it all back. But I do have a quality of life that is so much better now."

The Gas Safe Register is calling for people to get their gas appliances checked before temperatures begin to fall this winter.

It said one in 10 homeowners in the South West admitted their gas appliances had never been serviced.