A grateful man flew nearly 5,000 kilometres from Nova Scotia to Calgary to express his thanks to an ADT dispatcher for saving his family from carbon monoxide poisoning.

Last spring, Reza Kashiloo hosted his family from abroad at his home in Dartmouth when an overnight storm piled the snow up around the outside of the house, blocking a vent.

Kashiloo and his six guests were asleep when the home’s ADT carbon monoxide detector activated, sending a signal to the security company’s Calgary monitoring center.

“I had my parents and my brother and sister over from overseas that night. It was a stormy night. It was a family reunion basically and we had a late night with the family, we went to bed, early morning woke up to a beeping sound,” said Kashiloo.

Karen Vastag in ADT's Calgary call centre alerted Kashiloo to CO in the furnace room and called the local fire department.

“While I was walking down stairs, the phone rang. I picked up the phone and Karen was on the phone and told me that we had a carbon monoxide release in the house and instructed us to wake up the family, get them away from the source, and wait for the fire department to arrive,” said Kashiloo.

It was too cold to wait outside so the family made their way to the upper floor to wait for emergency crews.

When they arrived, crews ventilated the home and made sure it was safe for the family to remain inside.

Kashiloo says it could have been a tragedy and he credits Vastag with saving their lives.

On Thursday, the two met in Calgary at the company's Care Centre in the city's southeast.

“Myself along with my family we are all thankful for ADT and the people working here for taking their job seriously and basically acting in a timely manner and they called as soon as the alarm went off so it was very fast and efficient from their side and I am standing here today because there are people who will sort of look after us,” said Kashiloo. “It’s really great, really happy to be here. It’s such an honour to meet somebody that has saved your life,”

“I was so excited to know he was coming. All the alarms that I take throughout all the years I’ve been with ADT, they’re just voices over the phone and when it’s an actual, actually saved a family and a life and then knowing that person is coming here, it’s a reality,” said Vastag.

Kashiloo says his system was offline just two weeks before the incident and had it repaired just in time.

(With files from Brad MacLeod)