There are those who have jobs where being on alert for danger is a core component. Think lifeguards or firefighters. For the rest of us, we don’t usually have to worry about the well-being of everyone in our line of sight at all times.
However, for one supermarket employee, a moment like that did arise as she saw a boy who needed help immediately. She stepped in and saved the day, will soon me recognized for doing so.
RELATED STORIES
A young boy was saved by a supermarket employee early this week.
And she now may be awarded for her vigilance.
Joanne Lang was working her shift at an Asda when she saw a boy out with his mother at the self-checkout. She noticed something wrong right away– the boy was struggling to breathe.
She rushed over immediately.
She saw the boy was holding a package of gummy snakes and realized he must have been choking on one, so she leaned him forward and firmly patted his back to dislodge it from his throat.
Lang said it “all happened very quickly”.
“I saw the little boy out of the corner of my eye sitting in a trolley and knew straight away that something was wrong as his face was going red and he was having difficulty breathing. He wasn’t coughing so I knew something was stuck,” she explained.
“I used the heel of my hand to hit him on the back a couple of times and the snake came out. I think he’d managed to swallow it whole and it got stuck.”
Thankfully, her quick thinking saved the boy’s life.
When it came out the boy, who was aged about two or three, just looked at me with a massive grin on his face. It was such a relief that he was OK.”
“His mum was in shock,” she continued, “She thanked me and then they left. I had a little breather and then went back to work.”
Lang believes her actions were “just pure instinct”.
She’s also a mother herself, so she credited “being a mum” as to how she knew what to do in that split second. “I just did what anyone else would have done. I was in the right place at the right time.”
While she was humble about the whole ordeal, her co-workers weren’t, with Asda customer service manager Rita Charleston championing for Lang to get the recognition she deserved.
Now, she’s nominated for an Asfa service superstar award.
As Charleston put it, “We are all so proud of Joanne. What she did was absolutely amazing. She single-handedly saved that child from choking. Her quick reactions really did save the day. The situation could have had a very different outcome if it wasn’t for Joanne.”
h/t: LADBible
