The Worst Day of Your Life

My lesson plan on Wednesday was to read a Choose Your Own Adventure book with the kids and have them make predictions and generally vote on what they should do. I had picked out the space adventure book, but one of my kids had a book called The Worst Day of Your Life, that she said was much better. I agreed and off we went.

As we read, she would make comments every now and then and the other kids would glance her way to see if they were making a good choice or not. After lunch we started up again and we'd been reading for about ten minutes when she raised her hand. I looked over to see what she was going to say, but realized that she wasn't going to say anything. Her face was turning bright red and so were her eyes. There were tears streaming down her face. As this is not normal, I tried to figure out what was wrong by asking the brilliant question, "Are you choking?"

She couldn't answer, but moved her hands into the international choking sign. I got up out of my perch behind my podium and moved over by her. My eyes kept going between her and the phone. I knew that I needed help from the nurse, but as she was two buildings away I realized that there wasn't anything she could do immediately. I sent a girl running to the nurse and tried to work with the choking girl myself. I then asked her if she could breathe at all. She tried to puff out, "No," but no sound really came out. I wasn't sure if her airway was completely blocked, but she wasn't coughing so I decided to try the Heimlich maneuver. The thoughts going through my head looked a little like this.

I'm not first-aid certified. I haven't been certified in four years. I could break her rib. I don't know what else to do. I can't do anything else at this point. She's not breathing. I've got to do something.

I told her to get up. I got my hands into the (hopefully) correct position around her waist and pushed once. Not too hard, but I wouldn't call it softly either. Nothing happened. I tried again and she bent over like she was going to throw-up, gagged, and spit out a jawbreaker the size of a marble. Plop. That was it. Her face turned back to normal and she seemed fine. Problem solved.

Another girl asked if she should stop the other one so that the nurse knew she didn't have to come, but I told her that I really wanted the nurse to come anyway, but as least she could meet them halfway and tell her that the choking girl was most out of danger.

I called the nurse so that she knew that the girl was okay, or at least to make sure that she was on her way. The bell rang for the hour to end and I told the rest of the kids to go. Luckily my prep hour was next (due to weird MAP testing scheduling 2nd hour was just after lunch) and so I was able to tell the nurse the whole story right then and there without another 25 kids being in the way. I told her that I had had to do the Heimlich and so she took the girl off to her office to check her out and to call her parents. It would not be a good thing to have her tell them over the dinner table that her teacher had done the Heimlich maneuver on her. As exciting conversation that would have made, I don't think her parents would have enjoyed the surprise, even though she was okay.

In reality, by the end of the whole ordeal I was worse off than the girl. She didn't even understand why they wanted to take her off in a wheelchair and kept trying to refuse it. I wasn't too bad until after the nurse left and then I was just trying to stop my teeth from chattering. I don't really think that she realized that she could have died and actually, I think that it's better that way. At thirteen you have enough to deal with without having to think through life and death situations.

I truly realized several things that day.

1. I am the only adult in my classroom. If anything happens, I am responsible for helping those kids get through it. Not just literature-type curriculum things, but real-life things. I thought I knew this before. I mean, I've done a million fire drills, earthquake drills, tornado drills (as mentioned previously on this blog), even lock-down drills. Last year we even had the real thing when the police thought that there was a sniper shooting at people on the highway near our school. I had done all of this, but with most of the other things, there were other teachers around. People I could get advice from or even just watch to see what they were doing. Here, though, it was just me. The scariest thought that I had during the whole thing was that I was the only person who could really do anything, and that if I did it wrong, then this girl could really die. And then, more selfishly, that it would be my fault.

2. The kids really trust me. Or they were just in shock. They all just sat there and looked at me. One girl asked me if she should go get the nurse and I sent her on her way. Everyone else just watched. No kids panicking, no movement, just sitting and staring.

3. I can't be a doctor or a nurse. I had always thought that if teaching didn't work out I could always switch to nursing. Now I'm not so sure. After it was all over, the nurse said that the girl looked better off than I did. And she was right. I think I was in shock. It really was a lot to deal with. I don't think I could deal with that however many times a day. Once was enough. I asked my team leader, who's been teaching for over twenty years, if it was anything she'd had to deal with before and she told me no. Throwing up. Bleeding. But never choking. I could have said the same thing, until Wednesday. Now, I'm most definitely going to get re-certified. I want to know that if anything happens that I'm ready for it.

All in all, it was a most eventful day. And rather ironic that the book that we were reading was The Worst Day of Your Life. It very easily could have been. I'm very thankful that it wasn't.