Tewksbury police officer saves child choking in school cafeteria

TEWKSBURY - It's safe to say Tewksbury Police Officer Katrina Valeri has her dream job. As a kid she wanted to be a crossing guard. And after self-sponsoring, paying her way through a police academy, here she is - helping kids be safe at school.

"I was at the right place at the right time and just acted," Valeri said.

Last week, she rushed down the hall to Center Elementary's cafeteria, where a child was choking.

"I remember walking over, I kind of took a breath and said remember what we learned in training," she recalled.

She quickly began to perform abdominal thrusts, formerly known as the Heimlich maneuver.

"I did it about 6-8 times because she was completely limp. After the eighth time I started to hear her cry. The nurse was right next to me and said 'OK stop she's breathing again.' We carried her back to the nurse's office," Valeri said.

Officer visits with students after incident

Officer Valeri's priority was this student in need. But she cared about the girl's classmates too. Some of the third graders covered their eyes and ears during the incident, so later, she went to their classrooms to help them understand what happened.

"A lot of the kids were telling us stories about oh this one time when I choked on this... some of them understood and I just kind of explained why it looked the way it looked," she said.

"Our kids are our most precious commodity in our communities. To see our officer step in and revert to her training to do what she did. I'm just so proud of her. I'm proud of the organization. And I'm glad it worked out," said Chief Ryan Columbus.

In her first month helping out at the schools, she feels exactly where she's supposed to be.

"In this profession every day I get the chance to do something good. If I made someone's day or made them feel safe, I've done my job. I'm glad she's OK and I got to see her at school again," she said.