a day after a school teacher's quick
action to help a choking student she
reflects on the enormity of the
situation and today we spoke to carly
lovelace about what happened fox 4's
dion engelin joining us now the video
really you can feel the emotion just in
the embrace between the two dion
yeah definitely those tense moments
started inside a classroom and
as we know they ended
like a textbook example of how to handle
a choking emergency
i was actually sitting right here at my
desk and we were following you know
reading a novel listening to it being
read crum high school sophomore english
teacher carly lovelace recalls it all
she signaled i knew that she was in
distress and she needed
assistance immediately the girl quickly
left the classroom according to my
students i sprinted after her
and then before i knew it we were both
here in the hallway where i could see it
was very visible that she was choking on
something
also visible the two of them in direct
view of a hallway surveillance camera
the student was choking on what turned
out to be a cap from a water bottle
the video shows lovelace with her arms
around the girl firmly doing quick
compressions and the cap dislodging from
her throat
if lovelace seems calm and collected
that's because she was i'm lucky i have
experience in early childhood care so
you never forget what the help me i'm
choking face looks like and so every
siren went off in my brain that said
carly she's in distress go help her once
again breathing the student's reaction
was to grab her teacher for a long
emotional embrace when
i knew she was safe when she knew she
was safe it was just
it was almost like we just
in that moment we just had to hug it out
because we were so happy that
she was safe and everything was okay so
these little post-its these aren't just
from today these are from all year
students meantime are leaving posted
notes praising lovelace the school
principal follows suit she's an
exceptional teacher she loves she loves
her kids
they know that she loves them sometimes
you don't like having to make that phone
call to your
superintendent but but this was a good
one and i was very grateful that
everything worked out the way it did and
just like that long hug
lovelace has embraced the enormity of
those few
life-saving seconds
and honestly i needed that hug too i
needed to hug it out for a minute and
it was kind of my mama teacher instincts
now mrs lovelace says since that video
has been uh getting around on social
media as well as our airwaves she says
she's been approached not only by
students and staff and parents but also
total strangers have come up to her and
thanked her saying they're so grateful
for how she reacted