Freehold's Heimlich hero teachers saved students five times this year

FREEHOLD BOROUGH – When Michelle Mirabello saw one of her kindergarten students choking on a piece of apple two weeks ago, she put her Heimlich training to work and popped the object out on the first try.

But she wasn’t the first borough educator this year to save a life using the decades-old technique of grasping someone from behind, pulling up and in, and dislodging a foreign object.

And she wasn’t the second, the third or the fourth.

Funding: Freehold Township teacher's $25,000 national award was no April Fool's joke

Education: Climate change will be on NJ school lesson plans in September. How teachers are preparing

Mirabello, a para-professional at the Pre-K-3 Freehold Learning Center, was the fifth district educator to employ the life-saving technique on a student during the 2021-2022 school year when she acted on June 3.

“She tapped me on the arm and was making choking noises,” Mirabello, a 15-year district employee, said about the lunchtime incident in the school cafeteria. “I just did it one time and the piece came out.”

Mirabello’s story is just the latest in a string of Heimlich successes among Freehold Borough educators dating back to December, according to Superintendent Joseph Howe.

“Incredibly on five separate occasions this year at different times of the day our staff have noticed students who were choking and acted without hesitation in administering the Heimlich maneuver,” Howe said via email. “When each of them drove to work that morning they did not expect to save a child's life that day.”

Around Town: Juneteenth celebration coming to Freehold, Marlboro

'Once in a lifetime': Long Branch Portuguese school students push laws in Parliament

Among those was Veronica Fiori, a teacher at Park Avenue Elementary School who was overseeing an after-school program on May 19 when a fourth grader came up to her panicking.

“A student was just eating chips and he came to me to let me know that he couldn’t breath,” said Fiori, 17-year veteran teacher. “He was pointing to his throat and panicking. It took three tries, but we got it out.”

The three other Heimlich heroes include:

• Tina Williams, a Park Avenue Elementary School special education teacher, who helped a student on March 2 who was choking on a piece of apple.

• Kara Holler-Perez, a Park Avenue Elementary School fifth grade teacher who aided a student with a bite of a sandwich stuck in her throat on Dec. 7.

• Laura Dilworth, a Freehold Learning Center kindergarten teacher who saved a 4-year-old on May 4 from choking on a meatball at lunchtime.

“We were lining the kids up to come out of the lunchroom back to class, when she came over with a friend and she was pointing to her chest and asking me to help her,” Holler-Perez recalls about her experience. “I leaned her over a garbage can and performed the Heimlich and it took three tries. It was a stuck sandwich.”

Each teacher credited learning the technique, developed by Dr. Henry Heimlich in 1974, as part of voluntary CPR training in Freehold Borough or elsewhere.

“I had an experience in a restaurant years ago where I was unable to help,” Mirabello said about what prompted her to get CPR training that included the Heimlich maneuver. “A man was on the floor and the ambulance came and I could do nothing but watch.”

While state law requires all schools to have defibrillation units on all campuses, there is no mandatory CPR or Heimlich training for teachers.

Sue Scalagione, the Park Avenue Elementary School nurse, said each school must have at least five staffers trained in CPR, as well as all coaches.

But while at least half of her school’s staff have received training that she offers, none of it is required.

“It wouldn’t be a bad thing to train everyone,” Scalagione said. “It would not be hard to do the instruction and it would make a difference.”

Dilworth, the mother of an 8- and 4-year-old, agreed.

“Especially during lunch duty and they should all be able to do it,” she said of fellow teachers. “Students should know the signs and some may not want to get up or be seen so they need to know to tell an adult.”

Dilworth said she had only been trained a few weeks earlier because of her role as a softball coach.

The training and practice of the Heimlich technique regularly proves worthwhile in classrooms nationwide, according to reports.

Just a few weeks ago an East Orange teacher saved a child choking on a bottle cap, while similar examples from Ohio to Texas in recent months have educators dislodging everything from breath mints to ice cubes.

“I’ve never heard of so many in one year and it is a little alarming,” said Holler-Perez, who was required to learn the technique as a field hockey coach years ago. “It makes you wonder how often it happens. It is scary to think. Are we not giving them enough time to eat, are they rushing?”

Joe Strupp is an award-winning journalist with 30 years’ experience who covers education and several local communities for APP.com and the Asbury Park Press. He is also the author of three books, including Killing Journalism on the state of the news media, and an adjunct media professor at Rutgers University and Fairleigh Dickinson University. Reach him at jstrupp@gannettnj.com and at 732-413-3840. Follow him on Twitter at @joestrupp

This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: Freehold NJ teachers save five students from choking