Photo: Getty Images
A school bus driver is being hailed a "hero" after saving a seven-year-old elementary student from choking, per ABC News.
Raquel Radford Baker, a bus driver for Dallas Independent School District, was outside of Seagoville North Elementary School last month when a student began to choke.
Surveillance video of the incident shows Preston, a 7-year-old in first grade, laughing with his peers before he put something in his mouth. Moments later, Preston told Radford Baker that he swallowed a coin as he signaled for help.
"There's a penny in my throat!" Preston said.
"A penny?" Radford Baker responded.
The bus driver said she used her training in CPR and first aid to help the boy.
"I opened the door. I said, 'Go ahead and throw up.' And he turned back to me and he was – looked like he was in trouble with breathing," Radford Baker recalled.
Radford Baker then carried Preston off the bus and performed the Heimlich maneuver.
"He can't die in my arms. I have to save his life. God help me," Radford Baker recalled thinking at the time.
She performed multiple rounds of the Heimlich until a quarter came out of the boy.
Preston said he sees the bus driver as his hero.
"I think she's my hero," he said. "Because she saved my life."
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