SOUTH JORDAN, Utah – A lunch clerk at a local elementary school came to a student’s aid after the young girl began choking.
Anne Carpenter is a lunch clerk at Monte Vista Elementary School, and on Wednesday she was watching a group of third-graders eat their lunch.
A young girl named Ashley Dwyer was singing with her friends when she accidentally inhaled her food. The girl began to choke, and Carpenter sprang into action.
“We were all singing.... So I ran up to the lunch lady and made whatever noise I could with my throat,” Ashley said.
Carpenter said a citrus fruit was the source of the issue.
“All I did was turn her around, lift her arms up and do the Heimlich, and a piece of orange segment came flying out,” she said.
Ashley said it was a frightening experience.
“I drank some water but it didn’t go down, it just made it worse, so random things just started popping into my head, so I didn’t know what I was thinking,” she said. “So I ran up to the lunch lady, and she just did it… I’m really grateful. If she hadn’t done that I would have died.”
Carpenter said she has been trained in CPR, so she was able to react quickly.
