3 First Graders Rush to Help Teacher After She Starts Choking on Food: ‘They 100 Percent Saved My Life’

A 23-year-old first grade teacher in Virginia is crediting three of her students with saving her life after she began choking during class.

Last month, Madison Swift was in her classroom at Lakeview Elementary School in Colonial Heights when a piece of food became stuck in her throat, she told CBS affiliate WTVR in a joint interview with her students, 7-year-old Kolton Hersh, 6-year-old Dereck Contreras-Franco, and 6-year-old Bryson Doss.

“I was eating while working with a student when I suddenly started choking on my food,” Swift recalled.

Doss remembered immediately noticing that something was wrong. “All of a sudden, her face and eyes started going red,” he said, according to WTVR.

As Swift struggled to breathe, the boys reacted fast. Contreras-Franco ran to hit the emergency call button on the wall, and he and his classmates shouted that their teacher was choking, WTVR reported. At the same time, Doss sprinted to a nearby classroom to get another adult.

“I knew that she was choking and I knew I needed to get another teacher,” he told WTVR.

Standing closest to Swift, Hersh began striking her back in an effort to help.

“The student next to me bent me over and started doing back blows to my back, to where I dislodged the food,” Swift told the outlet, praising all three boys for their quick response. “They 100 percent saved my life.”

At the end of the week, Swift let the boys pick prizes from her classroom treasure box as a small thank-you for their bravery, WTVR reported.

The school later honored the first graders publicly in a social media tribute.

“We are so proud of these three first graders! They jumped into action when they noticed that their teacher was choking,” Lakeview Elementary School wrote alongside a photo of the trio on Facebook on Friday, Nov. 21. “Thank you to our Lakeview heroes!”

Swift added her own message in the comments: “My little life savers!!”