SAUGUS — When Belmonte STEAM Academy third-graders realized a classmate was choking, the pair sprang into action.
Teacher Meagan Killion recounted the frightening moments that turned a late March lunchtime at the school into a harrowing experience marked by a quick response from students who ran to assist Sylaas Vieira, 9, when he started to choke on a carrot.
Classmate Heloysa Delima saw Vieira start to cry, and reached out to him.
“I started to think that he was trying to talk because he was trying to breathe,” said Delima.
When she realized Vieira was choking, she ran to get a teacher.
That’s when third-grader Yuzreef Yusuf, 9, recognized Vieira was choking. Knowing his friend has asthma, Yusuf thought Vieira might be having trouble breathing or playing a joke.
“I got pretty scared and confused about what he was doing,” said Yusuf.
Vieira’s tears convinced him his classmate was choking. Yusuf remembered how his father taught him the way to help a choking victim.
“I started hitting him on the back,” said Yusuf. A carrot popped out of Vieira’s mouth.
Yusuf said his father not only taught him how to help someone choking, he even made Yusuf practice on him to make sure he perfectly understood the life-saving technique.
The frantic moments left Vieira grateful for his quick-acting classmates.
“I just wasn’t thinking at the moment,” said Vieira.
He said that all he knew as he struggled to breathe was that he needed help. One of his friends told him he tried to gesture to classmates that something was wrong.
The lunch-time scare showed him that kids can save someone’s life.
“It’s really awesome,” said Vieira.
It is the second time at Belmonte in the last several months that a student saved a choking peer. Jacob Puglisi, 8, leapt into action to help a fellow student choking on a nacho during lunch last fall.
He performed the Heimlich maneuver, remembering instructions his mother, Erica, taught him. His quick thinking earned Puglisi praise from the School Committee.
Killion said Vieira, Yusuf, and Delima are good friends who play together at recess, and often work as partners in class.
“It takes a lot to immediately know what to do,” said Killion. “They were heroes.”
