Cherokee Bend teacher saves life of choking student

Cherokee Bend fourth-grade student Mills Prater is doing fine today thanks to the help of a friend and a teacher who helped save the choking child.

For a few minutes Tuesday, Mills couldn’t talk, cough or barely breathe. While eating lunch in the school cafeteria, she started choking.

“I guess I just inhaled the Golden Grahams, and it was becoming hard to breathe,” Mills said. “Before I was not able to speak, I was trying to tell Rosemary what was happening to me.”

Mills was able to squeeze out the words “I’m choking” to her classmate Rosemary Cabaniss.

 “At first I didn’t really know what was going on but her face turned really red, like as red as the kick balls we have in PE,” Rosemary said. “And then I just ran and got Mrs. Hunt.”

Rosemary ran to her fourth-grade teacher, Shelley Hunt, who performed the Heimlich maneuver for the first time and saved Prater.

 “I just started wheezing and gagging, and I kind of threw up a little on my shirt,” Mills said. “The nurse started running down the hallway. But she was pretty far and it was probably not going to be really good to wait, so Mrs. Hunt started giving me the Heimlich. She does it three times before I was able to breathe again.”

Hunt said she did what any teacher would have done.

“From my perspective, you just kind of do what you’re supposed to do, as we do for all kids all the time,” she said. “It was just a reaction.”

Hunt said a community of people really helped, including the colleagues surrounding her and the nurse who cared for Mills after the incident.

“I don’t know what people did or what they said. I just have memories of people’s faces, and I’m like, ‘Okay, my family’s here to support me,’” Hunt said. “[They] supported me to be able to do what I needed to do.”

Mills’ mother, Candy Graham Prater, said she couldn’t think of a good way to thank Rosemary and Hunt, so she decided to post her story on the What’s Happening in Mountain Brook Facebook page to give them some recognition.

“I was thankful that they just acted and didn’t wait,” she said. “It can be just one second between a tragedy and a good story.”