Long Island math teacher saves 11-year-old student choking on gumball in class

MEDFORD, Long Island (WABC) -- A math teacher on Long Island is being called a hero for saving a student who was choking -- and now he is turning the terrifying experience into a lifesaving lesson.

The child's mother was able to thank the teacher in person on Friday afternoon.

For her, the hug was everything after her 11-year-old son almost died if his math teacher didn't step in.

"I was having a gum ball and then basically I laughed and then I swallowed and it got stuck in my throat," Henry Perry said.

Perry, a sixth-grader at Oregon Middle School, started to choke.



"I immediately got up and I like did this to my friends, telling them that I was choking and they started screaming 'Mr. Schiefer, Mr. Schiefer!'"

That is when Christopher Schiefer quickly responded.

"As I turned around and I saw Henry stand up and he was kind of grabbing his chest, so at that time, I saw the first kid that I saw and said, 'you go run to the nurse, grab the nurse' and then at that time, I grabbed Henry, brought him a couple feet away in front of the classroom and just started performing the Heimlich maneuver on him," Schiefer said.

"I had like one gasp of air, it kind of slid when it was coming up and I was actually able to say ouch," Perry said.

It's a pain he said that slowly went away.



"It hurt for the rest of the day and for the next day, it just tasted sour because I had a sour warhead come up, but never again," Perry said.

Schiefer is trained every year to do CPR and the Heimlich as the school's lacrosse coach.

"I was a little shaken up because I've never done that Heimlich maneuver on anyone before and I was concerned for him," Schiefer said.

Perry said it was so scary he cried the rest of the day. But as for what he thinks of his math teacher?

"I think that he's a hero, I think that if he wasn't there, I would've not have been here," Perry said.



Perry's favorite subject is math. He says when he grows up, he wants to be a math teacher just like his hero.

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