I learned two things last month.
One is my 6-year-old son, Rick, does not like emoji-shaped French fries.
The second, and more important, revelation is how important educators are not just to my children’s intellectual development but their overall safety and care.
My wife, Kirsten, and I trusted the staffs at the day care my children used to attend and now at Holy Family Catholic School to take care of our twin children, who are in first grade. Our daughter, Sammi, is Rick’s older sister by a whole minute.
But it took a phone call from my wife on March 11 to solidify how much trust I have in the educators in our kids’ lives, and how thankful I am for administrators, teachers and school staff for being there when I can’t.
When I got that call from Kirsten just after lunchtime, she started our conversation with the ominous opening phrase, “First I want you to know Rick is OK.” She then told me a short version of a story that led to Holy Family School Principal Bridget Brennell receiving a LifeSaver Award from the Rock Community Fire Protection District on April 11 during a school assembly.
Brennell received the award due to her quick actions to dislodge the fry from Rick’s throat. It was the second award she received because my wife already had assembled a thank-you basket of Dr. Pepper, sour cream and onion chips, peanut M&Ms, Twizzlers and Life Savers candy that Rick and Sam delivered a few days after Brennell’s quick actions.
As Rick tells it, he didn’t like the taste of the fry, and before he could spit it out, the fry went down his throat. He punctuates his retelling of the story with, “I won’t eat emoji fries.”
Brennell’s version of what happened included a little more detail.
“I looked over and saw that Ricky’s face was red, and it was getting redder by the second,” she said. “He started to turn colors. I ran over and said, ‘Ricky can you breathe?’ He said, ‘No.’ My first thought was, ‘He is not a baby. I needed to try to do the Heimlich maneuver.’ Then I felt him, and I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, I can’t do this. His ribs are right there.’”
Brennell said because of Rick’s small stature, she scooped him up and told him she was going to hit his back.
“I hit his back three or four times, and finally, the object came out,” she said. “Right away, you could see his color come back.”
After Rick was safe, he got to take a trip to the principal’s office to get checked out by Rock Fire Chief Kevin Wingbermuehle, who responded because the staff at House 1, which is near the Holy Family campus, were responding to a different emergency. He said by the time he arrived at the school, Rick was laughing and more concerned about going to recess.
Brennell, on the other hand, was a little more worked up.
“It is always 10 times more stressful when you have to react,” Wingbermuehle said. “She did what she needed to do, and the child was doing just fine and went right back to school.”
Brennell said she was “pale as a ghost” when she and Rick went to the school office, adding that it took her some time to calm down.
“I sat at the table in the office for a good 45 minutes,” she said. “I was shaking, and we had a meeting at school that night, and I was still just like, ‘What just happened? What did I do? Thank you Rock Community for training us every two years and keeping us consistent so we know what we need to do in case something happens.”
That is where the other life savers come into play.
Brennell and Rock Fire personnel train the staff at Holy Family School twice a year in CPR, first aid and other life-saving maneuvers.
Alyson Rotter, Rock Fire’s public information and education officer and a former teacher at Holy Family, said she also trains staff at the Fox C-6 and Windsor C-1 school districts and at every private school and day care in the district twice a year.
It is that additional time and training I am thankful for, and Rock Fire Chief Kevin Wingbermuehle said he is proud to see the training the fire district provides work.
“We put in hundreds of hours of training for that one event when it may be needed,” he said. “To see the impact and know the difference that is made by people who attend those classes is incredible.”
Brennell told the students during the school assembly that she was terrified when she saw Rick choking, and she told me that was the first time she had to do anything like that in 27 years in education. She taught at the school for 15 years before becoming the principal for the last eight.
“Even though we receive training over and over again, it is never too much training to make sure we are ready for when we need to use that training,” Brennell said.
It can be easy to focus on what kids are or are not learning in school, but it is just as important, and maybe even more so, to know educators and school staff place as much emphasis on keeping children safe as they do in teaching them.
So, thank you to all administrators, teachers and school staff who keep children safe, and thank you for those who help prepare them for emergency situations.