Glendale faculty recognized for saving choking student

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. – Faculty members at Glendale High School in Springfield are being recognized for their efforts to save the life of a student who was choking in the cafeteria.

“It was crazy. I’ve done this a long time, 20 years plus, and that’s the first time that I ever thought that we might lose a student,” Glendale Principal Josh Groves reflects in an empty cafeteria.

It was April 18, in that same cafeteria where a Glendale freshman had finished his lunch before going back to class, but he suddenly couldn’t breathe.

“He turned around and looked at me, and I noticed that he was choking,” School Resource Officer Justin Murray said. “He was starting to turn blue.”

“Officer Murray immediately recognized that the student was choking, and he reacted and gave him the Heimlich a couple of times there with no success,” Groves said. “We helped the student to the nurse’s office, and once we got in there, we did the Heimlich and some other back strikes and other things to try to just dislodge that food, and so we were able to do so after a period of time and get him to where he can breathe again.”

Five other employees provided support during the incident.

In addition to Groves and Murray, Assistant Principal Lisa Anderson, Counselors Kristi Ditzfeld and Jamie Temple, and nurses Kristin Rohrer and Lori Harmon.

“Dr. Anderson, one of our assistant principals, was working with our counselors to contact the student’s family and quickly to make sure that they knew that we were calling for an ambulance, that a medical emergency had occurred here at school. The nurses were providing support to Officer Murry and me in kind of directing traffic,” Groves said. “One of our nurses is an ex-emergency room nurse, and so she [training had] kicked into what she knew in that environment. Counselors were there quickly to help support students that were upset.”

The seven were honored at Tuesday’s SPS School Board meeting.

“This team’s heroic response to a life-threatening emergency prevented an unimaginable tragedy for one of our students, his family, and the Glendale School community,” Stephen Hall, SPS’ Chief of Communications said during the meeting.

Groves says training by SPS was essential in the steps faculty took to help the student.

“The district provides a significant amount of training annually here. Our nurse provides training, safety protocol training such as that,” Groves said.

Murray says he’s encountered situations like this in the past.

“[There] really wasn’t a panic. Having done it before, it was just one of those things, I knew it needed to come out, especially the way that his face was looking,” Murray said.

However, Groves says the potential of tragedy didn’t hit him until that night.

“Initially I didn’t think about it. We just reacted to what the circumstance was. I think the training kicked in,” Groves said. “After the event was over, it weighed heavy on me, and you just think about it.

“I didn’t sleep much that night. I think the adrenaline rush and just the fear of losing a student was hard to kind of swallow and process some of that.”

Murray and Groves don’t want to be called heroes because they believe they were just doing their jobs, but they say the recognition is a nice reminder of the work they pour into the district.

“It was a very nice thing to do,” Murray said. “It’s just this is part of the job that we do.”

“It felt nice. I’m proud that we were recognized. I’m prouder that my nurses and counselors and assistant principal were recognized,” Groves said. “It felt good just to know after talking with that young man’s mom and family and just that was enough. Making sure that every one of our kids gets to go home every day is probably the reward, just knowing that that young man is okay. We just do what we are supposed to do, what our jobs are, what we’re trained to do.”

As for the student, Murray says he’s doing just fine.

“He was very thankful and excited. He was very sore on his throat, and where he had the Heimlich and got back strikes from trying to get the stuff out,” Murray said. “I don’t think the emotions hit him until later in terms of what happened. He was just glad that he could breathe again.”

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