Samantha Kelley
Samantha Kelley, a third grader at Edgerton Elementary School in Puyallup, is a little young to do self-directed volunteer work, but she’s not too young to save a life.
The 9-year-old was presented the Star of Courage Award at the Red Cross Mount Rainier Chapter’s Pierce County Heroes Breakfast in October. Her quick thinking and action in doing the Heimlich maneuver saved her friend, Tara, who was choking on a piece of fruit. The award is sponsored by the Mattich family; they lost their son, Isaac, in a drowning accident, and choose to recognize a young person who saves a life.
Samantha’s mother, Linda Kelley, has allergies that sometimes make food stick in her throat. “Although I can take care of it myself, Samantha would panic,” says Kelley, a single mom who lives alone with her daughter. “I taught her the Heimlich maneuver so that she’d know what to do if she saw someone choking.”
This past March, when Samantha was 8, she and Tara were having a tea party. The two girls were enjoying tangelos, picking out a movie and laughing at jokes. While laughing, Tara began choking on a piece of fruit. “I heard my daughter shout, ‘Tara, are you OK?’ three times with no answer from Tara,” Kelley remembers. She rushed upstairs, but before she could get there, Samantha had reached behind her friend and done abdominal thrusts to dislodge the food. Kelley found Tara gasping, with the piece of tangelo in her hand. Samantha explained that she had made her friend laugh, caused her to choke and then saved her life.
“Mom showed me the Heimlich maneuver one time. I remembered it,” Samantha says matter-of-factly. She has been eager to show other people she meets how to do the maneuver. “You don’t have to be afraid of what people think,” she says. “If you see someone that’s choking, don’t worry if you don’t know them, still help them.” Her mother says Samantha applies the same philosophy to bullying, which bothers her very much. “If you don’t know them (the person being bullied), you can still help out by saying, ‘Hey, that’s not nice.’”
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