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Choking pupil saved by fast-acting friend
By MICHAEL SAEWITZ © St. Petersburg Times, published March 29, 2001 ST. PETERSBURG -- Third-grade teacher Candy Wilson recently decided to teach her 26 pupils how to use the Heimlich maneuver. It was just a whim. On Wednesday, it may have averted a tragedy.
The choking quickly worsened; Serrell's eyes began to flicker; he struggled to breathe. Without hesitation, Adam Christner, also 8, positioned himself behind Serrell and began to employ the Heimlich, an emergency technique to dislodge an object from the windpipe. Moments later, as the crisis came to quick conclusion, Wilson's pupils were wildly cheering and high-fiving a pale Adam, and hugging a relieved Serrell. "With so many negative fears in schools these days, it's nice to recognize and appreciate genuine caring that students show for each other," said principal Gaye Lively. Wilson was proud of the young hero. "Maybe sometimes when I talk too much, it's not in vain," she said. Wilson was out to lunch when the incident occurred in the cafeteria shortly before 11 a.m. An assistant principal and three aides were in the lunchroom at the time, but were not aware of the problem, Lively said. "There was no noise, no screaming, no yelling, no cry for help," Lively said. But when Adam saw his friend in trouble, he did not hesitate. "Adam saved Serrell's life!" the students told their teacher when she returned from lunch. "What? What?" Wilson recalled asking. "What do you mean Adam saved Serrell's life?" The students told her how Adam, the smallest student in the class, first patted Serrell on the back, then tried the Heimlich without success. "The first time I didn't do it hard enough," Adam said later Tuesday. "Then I did it hard enough, and I saw something yellow pop out of his mouth and onto his tray." Serrell was grateful to his friend. "I told him I was lucky he was sitting by me," Serrell said. "My other friends were talking and doing something else." Wilson said she's had a "phobia about choking" since a former student of hers at Pinellas Park Elementary School almost choked on a sandwich in 1990. Wilson said she'd rebuke her students when they'd suck on the tops of their pens, or run with lollipops in their mouths. She "didn't want them to think I was mad at them," so she told them about her 1990 scare and taught them the Heimlich about three months ago. Wilson said the students practiced the maneuver in class for half an hour that day. She also taught them the "international sign for choking," which Adam said Serrell tried to do but could not because he was coughing so hard. Wilson said she called both parents immediately after hearing what happened. "He's a leader," said Adam's mother, Tracy. "He's always been a take-charge kind of kid. But I never dreamed that he would know what to do." Although Adam was "white as a sheep" and complaining of a stomach ache for the rest of the day, he said later Tuesday that he was happy about what he had done. "I'm lucky my friend didn't pass out and that I still have him," Adam said. The class discussed the incident after lunch, and Wilson gave her pupils an unusual homework assignment Tuesday night: to spend quality time with their parents and tell them how much they loved them. Adam said he'd already done his homework assignment. "Today," Wilson said, "my students realized how fragile life was."
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