Pupils at Duffryn High School had a scary shock when they came face to face with a giant carbon monoxide puppet which visited the Newport school.

The deathly-looking puppet made the visit courtesy of a unique partnership between gas network company Wales & West Utilities and the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama.

Student puppeteers from the RWCMD theatre design course designed and made the monster puppet, as part of a brief to look at creative and innovative ways to grab the attention of young people to help explain the very real dangers posed by carbon monoxide poisoning.

With hundreds of people injured from CO poisoning and 40 deaths each year in the UK, it’s a serious message that everyone needs to know, but one that can be difficult to get over to teenagers.

With the help of the 10-foot puppet, Wales & West Utilities is helping to explain the dangers and how to keep safe to many young people across Wales & the south west of England.

Jaime Falarczyk, corporate affairs manager at Wales & West Utilities, said: “Every year our engineers make around 1,000 visits to properties where evidence of CO is found. We try to raise awareness of this avoidable danger to all gas users in our area, and teenagers are historically a very difficult audience to engage with.

“This is where our partnership with the RWCMD has proved invaluable. The scary puppet they have designed really grabs everyone’s attention and we hope is helping get the safety message across to young people in an unexpected and powerful way. It’s so important for people to realise that this is a poisonous gas that doesn’t smell, has no taste and can’t be seen - but it kills 40 people in the UK every year and leaves a further 200 seriously ill.

“It’s emitted by faulty appliances powered by any fuel that burns – gas, coal, oil, petrol and wood. The symptoms from inhaling it include headache, dizziness, vomiting and shortness of breath. Sometimes people have flu-like symptoms, but without the high temperature.”

The RWCMD students and the scary puppet are visiting schools around Wales and the south west of England, the area in which Wales & West Utilities operates. As part of the visit the students are holding puppet workshops, where pupils can have a go at making and working their own puppet creations.

Jo Lockwood, Head of Art at Duffryn High School, said, “Well done to the RWCMD puppet workshop and the students within the GCSE Art and Design group at the school on the their superb creations. The puppets were brilliant and the students gained so much from the whole experience. I really think the giant puppet and the workshop can really emphasize to the students the dangers of CO poisoning in an interesting way. A big thank you to RWCMD and Wales & West Utilities for enabling this exciting opportunity.”

More than 7.5 million people rely on Wales & West Utilities to deliver gas for heating homes and powering businesses in Wales and the south west of England.