raksyBH/iStock(NEW YORK) — A school bus driver from Missouri was hailed a hero for her quick reaction that saved a young student who was choking.
Carolyn Goering hit the brakes and sprang to the rescue of a second grade boy who was choking on her bus.
“That’s what I had to do, it seemed almost innate,” Goering told ABC News about her quick decision to help.
Surveillance video captured the incredible moment when the bus driver of seven years ran to help.
“I looked in the mirror and I can see Mitch [his older brother] yelling ‘Allen’s choking’ and [I] just immediately hopped up and ran back,” Goering said.
“His face was red, his eyes he was crying and he just made a noise and I asked him if he was choking,” the boy’s older brother said. “I alerted the bus driver and she came running down the aisle.”
“In my head I was thinking, ‘I am going to die, I need to get help,'” Allen recalled.
Goering performed the Heimlich maneuver on the young boy and said that during her last three hard thrusts “the object came out.”
“She hit me a few times and stuff came out,” Allen said. “It felt good.”
“I just bent over and held him in my arms for a few minutes, just stood back up told the kids to sit down,” she said. “I did what I had to do.”
While she has never previously had to use CPR, Goering said she was required by the bus companies she has worked for to have CPR training.
“I am a grandmother just as someone’s child — I just jumped in and I think my brain went into overdrive; [I thought,] ‘Let’s do this.'”
Even though Goering was the one who dislodged the airway blockage, she thinks the young boy’s older brother is the real hero.
“I want to commend Mitch — if he hadn’t alerted me the way he did and not express his concern for his brother,” she said. “He’s a hero in my eyes.”
“She saved his life by doing the Heimlich,” Mitch, whose family has asked to conceal his last name, said. He thought he would get “some of the credit” but said, “I think she should be the main hero.”
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