If you came across someone in need of assistance, what would you do? Would you stop and help or keep on walking by?
As adults, our answers would be mixed, probably. Many wouldn’t think twice about helping a fellow citizen in need. Others, we may just continue with what we were doing, hoping the next person would lend a hand.
For kids, though, the answer would be different. To them, it’s black and white, right and wrong. It’s just their nature to help.
Davione Robinson, an 11-year-old South Dover Elementary School student, didn’t walk on by earlier this month and potentially saved his friend’s life in the school’s cafeteria. During lunch, Czryn Richardson, 9, began choking on a piece of chicken and Czryn’s quick thinking alerted Davione to what was happening — he remembered how to signal that he was choking from a Risk Watch lesson the previous year. Davione, remembering the same lesson from just a few weeks ago, reacted with the Heimlich maneuver, dislodging the food.
We can all learn a lesson from a wise 11-year-old — “If you see somebody choking don’t be scared to help them. And tell your friend not to be scared, either,” Davione said.
I’m fully confident that had Davione not acted or not known how to perform the Heimlich maneuver, someone else in that cafeteria would have, most likely a teacher or an aide. These people work with kids every day and are trained to deal with such emergency situations.
But the actions of both boys are a testament to the Risk Watch program, an injury prevention curriculum through A.I. duPont Hospital for Children and the Delaware State Fire School taught to pre-schoolers through eighth-graders. The lesson here, to us adults, is if we give our children and students the tools to make the right decisions and act appropriately, we have to trust that they will.
We all complain that kids don’t listen. They don’t pay attention. Give me a full day with my nieces and nephews, ranging from age 2 to 13, and I’ll probably say the same thing. But we have to give kids more credit. These kids are perfect examples that, although they can be frustrating at times, they listen to what we say — and do — more than we might like to believe.
I’ve done at least two stories in the past about kids who have saved a family member’s life by doing one simple thing — calling 911. In both cases, the children called for help much quicker than I would have because, knowing me, I would’ve analyzed the situation instead of just calling for the help I know I needed.
Would I have known what to do in that South Dover cafeteria? Not really. I don’t know the Heimlich maneuver. These two boys taught me that maybe I should learn. You never know when it will save someone’s life.
Email Maureen Raitz at maureen.raitz@doverpost.com.
