Michael Gingras, a 15-year-old sophomore at Victor J. Andrew High School in Tinley Park, learned the Heimlich maneuver a year ago during a brief lesson in gym class.
Two weeks ago, on Dec. 19, that knowledge came in handy when Gingras’ younger brother’s friend, an eighth grader, started to choke while eating chicken nuggets at their house.
“His face looked panicked,” said Ashley McKeigue, Gingras’ mother. “So I go behind him and did what I thought was the Heimlich, and I was like pushing on his diaphragm. And I’m pretty sure my hand was positioned right, it was the right position on him, but I was too nervous to use real force because he’s so much smaller than me.”
Because she was anxious about hurting him, she said, she wasn’t able to clear his throat.
It was at that point that Gingras, who’d been called away from his Fortnite game to eat, intervened.
“Thank God he walked upstairs,” McKeigue said. “He walked upstairs, he goes, ‘Mom, I know how to do this, get out of the way.’”
“She was like, not even doing it,” Gingras said. “Giving him a big hug, pretty much.”
Gingras successfully performed the Heimlich maneuver, clearing the obstructing chicken nugget in one attempt.
“I would like to think that if Mikey was not here, I would have used more force,” McKeigue said. “But that’s just not how it went down. How it went down is that Mikey came and he saved him.”
Afterward, McKeigue said, she and her younger son, Christian Gingras, were left unsettled.
“When they left, I was sitting in here with my younger son, who, it was his friend,” McKeigue said. “He’s like, ‘Mom, are you scared?’ And I’m like, no, I think the feeling you’re thinking of is anxiety, because we know he’s OK, so there’s nothing to be scared about, but we both felt so unsettled.”
The lesson where Gringas learned how to perform the Heimlich maneuver last year was simple and short, he said.
“They made us watch a video and answer a couple questions on it,” Gingras said. “That’s pretty much it.”
McKeigue wrote to Victor J. Andrew, encouraging them to continue teaching the maneuver.
“This incident truly could have been tragic but thanks to whoever taught this last year, it was not,” McKeigue wrote to the school.
Principal Abir Othman responded, writing it was meaningful to hear the training helped save a life.
“Moments like this remind us why teaching life saving skills matters so much,” Othman wrote. “I will be sharing your email with our Physical Education department so they can be recognized and commended for the important work they do with our students.”
Many schools provide Heimlich maneuver education, but not all.
“‘I just think I didn’t want to do it too hard!” McKeigue said, but Mikey told her “wouldn’t you rather break his rib and save his life?”
The boy who choked is all right, Gingras and McKeigue said, although he suffered from a sore throat for a few days.
“The kid’s mother made me a scarf, and him and his brother came over and gave it to me, which was pretty sweet,” Gingras said.
elewis@chicagotribune.com