Montville police officer Roger Caron retired from the force 30 years ago.
Now, he spends his days as the safety and security officer of Pascack Hills High School.
For the most part, Officer Caron patrols the school making sure nothing gets out of hand. This past April, however, something happened that made him a viral star.
As Officer Caron was doing his daily patrol, he noticed a female student was acting very strangely.
“She was stumbling a little, moving very quickly,” he told CBS New York.
“The closer I got to her, I realized there was a problem.”
The student, 17-year-old Sarah Bazzini, had been rushing to class while eating her lunch when a French fry had gotten lodged in her throat.
She had tried to clear it with sips of a beverage, but it wasn’t moving at all. “Every step I took, I got very weak,” she said.
“After a couple of seconds, I felt myself fading.”
Choking is a dangerous emergency that needs to be handled swiftly. According to the National Safety Council, it’s actually the fourth leading cause of unintentional injury death.
As Officer Caron approached Sarah, he noticed her face was turning blue. She immediately started motioning towards her throat, and he realized what was going on.
Wrapping the teen in up in his arms, Officer Caron proceeded to give her a few good thrusts using the Heimlich maneuver.
Thankfully, after a few seconds, the french fry came dislodged. Since that moment, Officer Caron’s been praised as a hero. According to NewJersey.com, Montvale Mayor Mike Ghassali even sung the officer praises, describing the event as an “excellent job by hero Special Law Enforcement Officer II Roger Caron.”
In response to the attention, however, Officer Caron has remained humble: “It’s a wonderful feeling to know you can help somebody, and that’s what I took away from this.”
Since that scary day in the hallway, Officer Caron and Sarah have become very close.
“There’s such a special bond I have with him now. He’s a hero,” she told CBS New York.
The event has also reaffirmed Sarah’s lifelong desire to become a police officer. When the incident occurred this past April, she said she would be studying criminal justice in the fall.
As mentioned, choking is extremely dangerous and more common than you’d probably think.
As a result, it’s especially important to be familiar with life-saving techniques like the Heimlich maneuver. If you’ve never done it, here are the steps:
- If someone can cough, speak or breathe, encourage them to continue trying to cough out the item. If they cannot cough, speak or breathe, move on to step 2.
- Stand behind victim with one leg forward between their legs.
- Reach around the stomach to locate their belly button
- Place the thumb side of your fist against the person’s stomach just about the belly button.
- Grab your first with your other hand and thrust inward and upward into the stomach using quick jerks.
Watch the incredible moment below!
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