‘I couldn’t breathe’: Camera captures coach save choking student
By Sarah Fili
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PAPILLION, Nebraska (KETV) — A camera inside the cafeteria at Papillion La Vista South captures the dramatic rescue of a high school student.
The teen said he was choking in the cafeteria when a coach jumped into action to help
“I was just kind of at my post,” Joel Hueser said.
Hueser is the varsity Papillion La Vista South basketball coach.
He was on lunch duty Tuesday. The video shows him seated under the clock.
“Yeah, that’s the point where I start to realize like, something’s not right,” Riley Kelly said, as he watched video from inside the cafeteria.
Freshman Riley Kelly had just taken a bite of a cheeseburger.
“I just didn’t chew it all the way,” Kelly said. “I’ve been in situations like this before where I try to wash it down because I have something stuck in there and nine times of out 10 it works and this is the one time it didn’t work.”
It’s stuck in his throat. He reaches for his milk.
“I had a little bit of trouble opening my milk because the panic was building up,” he said.
Hueser is still working on his laptop.
“I was drinking the milk and I didn’t feel any milk moving I just felt the milk being held there in my throat and I couldn’t breathe,” Kelly said.
Kelly’s tablemates don’t yet notice either.
“It was all so sudden, it was like a flash of lightning in my head but at the same time super slow,” Kelly said.
He grabs his throat and students yell for help.
“It was just that universal sign that he was choking and sure enough,” Hueser said.
Precious seconds matter in moments like that.
“All I remember is just like the fear,” Kelly said. “Next thing you know I was being saved.”
Hueser leaped up and immediately performed the Heimlich maneuver on Kelly.
Custodians folded tables and made a barrier to keep the commotion out of view.
A few good thrusts and the chunk of cheeseburger is out.
“Every two years when we have to do CPR (and training), I’m like, ‘Ugh really, we have to do this again, and it paid off this time,” Hueser said.
Kelly says he’s grateful to a coach he’d never met until that moment.
“I would definitely say thank you very much I really appreciate it,” Kelly said.
Hueser said he’s no hero. Just thankful Kelly’s still around for lunchtime.
“Any teacher or coach would have done the same thing. I just happened to be there,” Hueser said.
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