JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Two Jacksonville middle school students are being praised for their quick thinking that was caught on camera.
Silas Olson and Sadie Salvador, both seventh graders at Cornerstone Classical Academy, saved Magda Nieto’s life. Nieto, who is a custodian at the school, was choking while eating lunch earlier this month.
Press play below to watch the surveillance footage.
JFRD presented each student with a “life-saving event” certificate during a special ceremony Tuesday morning in front of the student body and their parents.
Both Silas and Sadie are very humble. They disagree with the use of the term “hero” in this case.
“I don’t really like when people call me that,” Silas said. “But right now, I just feel joy that I was able to save somebody. I feel good that I actually helped.”
“I would not really call us heroes because it had to be done,” Sadie said. “We were just in the right place at the right time. It had to be done. So we did what we had to do to save her life.”
According to Nieto, it all started when was having lunch inside the cafeteria, sitting alone.
“I was eating steak. A little piece of steak. I took a little bite. Then it got stuck in my throat,” she said. “I could not breathe, couldn’t talk.”
After Nieto said she tried taking a sip of water and nothing was working, she started thinking the worst.
“I was dying,” Nieto said. “That is what I was thinking. I was dying. I was like, ‘what am I going to do next?’”
What happened next was Nieto walked over to Silas and Sadie, who were both standing in the lunch line.
Since she could not speak due to choking, Nieto tried her best to demonstrate what was happening.
At first, they had no idea but then quickly realized things were not good. Then they jumped into action without hesitation.
“I tapped on her back the first couple of times,” Silas said. “Then I stopped and realized that that was not going to work. Then I did the Heimlich and Sadie also tapped on her a couple of times.”
“When she came over, I was just smiling and then she [pointed to her throat and motioned patting on the back] and I knew that she needed help,” Sadie said. “I saw Silas go over to her and start doing the Heimlich. I was just patting her on the back. Then I went [from her sides and began squeezing].”
After a few seconds that felt like forever, the food came up. That was a relief.
This situation leads to two big questions:
What should you do if you are choking and what should you do if you see someone else choking?
Dr. Johnique Bennet, a family physician who has been practicing for nearly a decade, explained and demonstrated those two scenarios.
“The first thing you want to do is stay calm,” Bennet said if you are the one choking. “Still call 911 even though you can’t speak. Set the phone down. You are going to try to dislodge the object yourself. You can use household objects, just like a chair and put it into your abdomen, thrusting it as many times as you can until the object is displaced. Or you can use your own fist to do that type of behavior until the object is dislodged.”
Bennet then showed the News4JAX crew what to do if you witness someone else choking.
“Again, stay calm,” she said. “You will need to position the person into a bent behavior. You will use the palm of your hand and thrust into the back five times at least until the object is dislodged. If not, move on to the Heimlich Maneuver, where you use your fist, you’re going to go around that person, grab your wrist and you’re going to push back and up until the object is displaced or someone there comes to aid. However long it takes for the object to be dislodged or for help to be on its way.
Dr. Bennet commended the students for not panicking while under pressure.
“I am absolutely impressed that this young man [and] woman did for their teacher,” she said. “The idea that they stayed calm and they were able to perform this procedure to save someone’s life, that is exactly what we were looking for in this situation.”
“I knew that she could not breathe,” Sadie said about Nieto. “That saddened me a little bit. I just knew that she needed help and I don’t want anybody to go through that pain.”
Nieto is eternally grateful for Silas and Sadie and thanks them whenever she sees them.
“I was just saying ‘thank you, thank you,’ but I was crying,” she said about that day. “Every time that I see them in the hallways, I look at them and smile, like ‘thank you, thank you,’ because I think that is not enough to say it. They saved my life.”
Two seventh-grade heroes knew exactly what to do when the pressure was on to save that life.