LEBANON, Ky. (WDRB) -- Split second thinking by a Kentucky teen saved the life of man who was choking in the middle of a restaurant — and it was all caught on camera.
The scary moment took place Thursday at the Cedarwood Restaurant in Lebanon, Kentucky, when a man at a table of six suddenly started choking on his food.
“It was just so quick,” said 17-year-old Nicole Fields, who is a server at the restaurant her family owns.
In surveillance footage from the restaurant, people at the table can be seen starting to panic. A man stands up and Fields rushes over as another man tries to help. When that doesn’t work, Fields jumps into action and starts the Heimlich Maneuver, dislodging the food the man was choking on.
After several seconds, the man started to breathe again.
“It was just pretty much the adrenaline, like, I just got that burst of it and I was like ‘I’ve got to go,’” Fields told WDRB News on Tuesday.
It all happened on a day Fields wasn’t even supposed to work. A student at the Marion County Area Technology Center, she had recently taken a class on CPR and first aid — one she initially didn’t plan on taking.
“l’m like, ‘I am never going to need this class,’ and then suddenly I do. So it’s obviously going to be a class that I want to take again to renew my certification,” Fields said.
The medics arrived soon after Fields jumped in to help, but the man said he did not need any treatment and even stayed to finish his meal.
A sign outside the Cedarwood Restaurant now reads “Our hero Nicole Fields — saving a customer’s life with a Heimlich Maneuver.”
Fields says she was just at the right place at the right time.
“That was a really scary moment in my life. I will never forget it. I will never forget him and it’s just life changing, you know,” she said.
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