I watched a Now This video about a boy named Ian who saved his friend, Will,  from choking on food during lunch. The other student sitting across from will assumed that Will was merely joking about choking.  One student, Ian Brown, said that he wasn’t sure if Will was laughing and coughing at the same time or if he was just kidding. Ian continues that the other students realized that Will was in fact choking due to the redness in his face and his hands behind his neck. Ian learned to perform CPR during his course to being a police explorer, which is a program that ensures the teaching of basic police technique to teens. Ian stated to ABC News that he felt like he was just doing what he was taught during his training course. Ian has wanted to be a police offered and he was merely doing what as taught to do during an incident like this. According to the Now This video the fourth cause of accidental death is choking. In addition, the Heimlich maneuver is known to have saved millions of lives during this situation.

It surprised me that out of all the people who were sitting with Will there was only one who was aware that Will was choking and knew the right procedure to help him out. I feel that CPR courses or training should be required to be taught to students in high school due to unexpected life- or death situations that occur like this one. Many students aren’t aware of how to perform CPR and aren’t educated about the importance of learning CPR. The statistics surprised me by letting me know that choking one of the main reasons for accidental deaths. Many might not think that this is possible, but surprisingly there are tons of people who unexpectedly find themselves choking on a piece of food while eating. If Ian was not there at that time, I honestly feel like it would have been a matter of time before the classmates realized what was going on and were able to find help. Also, it’s important for us to be aware of the signs of someone choking and be able to get help quick  if we aren’t aware of performing CPR. One may never know when a situation like this occurs, but wouldn’t you rather be ready and prepared to save one’s life. Just think about how many more lives can be saved if we were aware about how to perform the Heimlich Maneuver? #JustThink