Photo Credit: Today Link: https://www.today.com/parents/illinois-high-school-student-saves-choking-baby-restaurant-t207507
(TODAY) Chase Eller is being called a hero after saving a choking baby while dining at a local restaurant.
Eller, a 16-year-old sophomore at Sullivan High School in Sullivan, Illinois, was sharing a meal with his girlfriend, Rylie Rhodes, 15, last Friday at El Rodeo restaurant in Decatur, when he heard a nearby baby coughing.
“It all happened in like a 10-second time span,” Eller told TODAY. “At first I didn’t think anything of the coughing. But then I looked over and I could see the baby was having a tough time breathing. I could see pretty obviously that the baby was choking.”
After Eller saw the baby’s panicking mom using her fingers to try to remove the blockage from the baby’s throat, the quick-thinking teen remembered a lesson he’d learned in a semester-long health class taught by teacher Scott Bales.
Sticking your fingers down a choking baby’s mouth will only make the situation worse, he recalled. Instead, Eller knew the right thing to do was to turn the baby upside down to try to dislodge whatever was stuck in the baby’s throat.
“When you know a baby is choking, you tip the baby upside down and you kind of put them on your arm at a specific angle. You sometimes have to give the baby a few back blows,” he said. “And whatever is lodged in the baby’s throat will hopefully come out easier than if the baby was sitting straight up.”
Eller asked the baby’s frantic mom if he could try to help. Immediately after he turned the baby upside down, whatever was lodged in the baby’s throat came loose. He said of the baby’s mom, “She just kept saying thank you. She was really grateful.”
“I didn’t really do much but she felt really glad that I stepped in,” he added.
Link to the story: https://www.today.com/parents/illinois-high-school-student-saves-choking-baby-restaurant-t207507
