BY DOMINIQUE GABRIEL G. BAÑAGA
BACOLOD City – A Grade 2 pupil choked on the food he was eating on Friday morning in Cadiz City, Negros Occidental.
Nine-year-old Zyrus Escalicas, a resident of Barangay 1, was a pupil at Cadiz East Elementary School in Barangay Zone 4.
During recess, he choked on some candy he was eating, said City deputy police chief Captain Gina Fernandez.
The boy then approached his adviser, Lyn Villalon, for help, who saw the pupil already turning purple.
Following the incident, the Cadiz City Disaster Risk Reduction Management Office and the city’s Department of Social and Welfare and Development will conduct a stress and psychological debriefing for Villalon and Escalicas’ classmates who were present during the incident.
If someone is choking, these are the following measures one could take, according to the Red Cross:
(1) encourage them to cough
(2) bend them forwards and give up to five back blows to try and dislodge the blockage
(3) perform the Heimlich maneuver by standing behind the patient, holding around his waist, and pulling sharply inwards and upwards above their belly button, and
(4) call emergency services/PN
