Training Rhonda Hassan received a decade ago recently saved a fourth-grader’s life.
Ali Saleh, 9, swallowed a grape and was gasping for air, his body shaking internally, when he ran panicked to Hassan, his teacher at Henry Ford Elementary School.
“In my head, I was just thinking, ‘I’ve got to do something. I can’t just let this child die,’” Hassan told WXYZ-TV.
She bent Ali over a trash can and delivered a sharp blow to his back.
Nothing happened.
”So, I’m like maybe he’s going to throw up and then I banged again and this huge grape flew out of his mouth,” Hassan said, adding that as a teacher, she feels “that the kids are my own as well.”
“We are so very thankful,” Ali’s sister Mariam, told the TV station.. “It’s great to know he’s in good hands.”
Hassan said she hopes to provide crisis training to all teachers in the district so they will be prepared if a similar emergency arises.