WILTON — When Patti Foss delivered the Sun Journal to a Morrison Avenue home Tuesday, she smelled exhaust fumes in the breezeway and saw headlights shining in an attached garage.

The house was dark. The garage door was locked, and hot, Foss said.

When the residents, Henry Brimigion, 88, and his wife, Arlene, 92, didn’t answer their phone, Foss called the police.

It was a good thing because exhaust fumes had permeated the attached breezeway and were seeping into the living room while he and his wife slept, Henry Brimigion said Friday.

He praised Foss as “the best paper girl that I have ever had, and I’ve had some good ones. I’ve never had a carrier who was so dedicated. She delivers my paper and brings it in and puts it on a chair in the breezeway.”

He has been Sun Journal customer since 1947, minus a year or two.

“I tell you she’s an angel,” he said. “Another hour or so and my wife and I don’t think we would be around.”

The Brimigions’ 2006 Chevrolet Impala had been running in the closed garage for about 12 hours.

Henry Brimigion, a World War II veteran, said he had driven to Farmington late Monday afternoon to find out when a veterans service was going to be held on Veterans Day, which was Tuesday.

He drove home, got out of the car and went into the house. He was concerned about his wife’s supper because she’s a diabetic, he said.

The couple went to sleep at about 9 p.m.

At about 5 a.m., he said his wife woke him up and told him the alarm was going off. He told her he hadn’t set the alarm. He got up to get his hearing aids and when he turned on the light he could see Foss outside walking back and forth.

Foss said she had knocked on the house door, but nobody answered. She then went to her car to get her phone book to look up the couple’s number. She called and called but nobody answered. She also called one of the Brimigions’ relatives, but there was no answer.

“I had no choice but to call the police,” Foss said.

But before officer Andrew Hardy arrived, she saw a light come on in the house and Henry Brimigion looked out the window at her. She went to the door to tell him his car was running.

“He couldn’t hear me,” she said. He hadn’t put his hearing aids in. Once he did, she told him his car was running. He went to open the interior door that leads to the garage from the enclosed breezeway. Foss said she grabbed his arm and told him not to open it.

Brimigion said he told her he would just stick his hand around the corner inside the garage to use the automatic door-opener.

Once the door was open, Foss said, she used her jacket to cover her nose and mouth and went in to shut off the car.

“I couldn’t get over the heat in the garage,” she said.

She told Brimigion to open the doors and windows to air out the house. Once Officer Hardy arrived, and she knew the couple was OK, Foss went back to delivering papers.

It was the second time this week she found cars running at residences, she said.

What Brimigion believes woke up his wife was a carbon monoxide alarm.

Hardy stayed with him until the place was aired out to make sure they were OK, he said.

Foss said she has been a Sun Journal carrier since June 2001, and before that she was a substitute for her sister for years.

Mike Theriault, director of circulation for the Sun Journal, said Foss and her family have always been dedicated carriers who look out for their customers.

Brimigion said the car had used about a quarter-tank of gas as it idled through the night. The heater was on in the car and the body of the car was not hot, but the garage itself you could have fried an egg in, he said.

dperry@sunjournal.com

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