Algonquin student who started choking in lunchroom saved by quick response by teacher

A middle school lunchroom often is a chaotic place, particularly when there are 300 seventh grade students having lunch together, Shellie Kamminga said.

That chaos means other students may not be aware of what happened Friday, Oct. 18, when one of their classmates got in trouble at Algonquin’s Westfield Community School.

Gunner Garcelon couldn’t breath. The seventh grader was choking on a cheese-filled breadstick and turning red. He started to stand up, and a classmate began waiving for Kamminga’s attention.

The rest is a bit of a blur, Kamminga said. She advanced toward Gunner while calling for administrators in the room to get their attention and for the school nurse to come in.

Kamminga performed the Heimlich maneuver on Gunner, forcing the stuck piece of bread out of his windpipe.

She’d just recertified for first aid in choking and CPR two weeks prior, about the same time she started supervising the seventh grade lunch period.

Kamminga was recognized for her quick thinking at the Dec. 17 Community Unit School District 300 board meeting. A short video interviewing Kamminga, Gunner and Principal Jennifer Breeze was posted to the District 300 Instagram account Dec. 18. It has since been shared there and on Facebook.

In the video, Gunner said he realized he couldn’t breath and instantly stood up.

When she got to him, Kamminga said she asked him if he could talk; he shook his head to tell her “no.”

She got behind him, wrapped her arms around him at the diaphragm and pulled in and up to force air out of his lungs, also forcing out any blockage. Kamminga didn’t see the piece of bread clear, but Gunner was now able to talk, she said.

It was the first time she’d performed the Heimlich outside of training. The nurse was then on-scene, and Gunner was taken to the office.

When school administrators asked if she needed to leave, Kamminga said she didn’t and went back to what she was doing before the incident, pulling a garbage can through the lunchroom and picking up anything left behind by the students.

According to the video, Gunner hadn’t had any follow-up with Kamminga. “I would thank her for saving my life,” he said.

Incidents like the one that day are rare, Breeze said. She’s been an administrator since 2020, but had never seen a student choke on food. Oddly, two weeks later another student began to choke “but was able to get it dislodged by themselves,” she said.

Breeze also lauded Kamminga for her fast thinking. “Shellie is one of those teachers who goes above and beyond in every capacity,” the principal said. “She was able to snap into action.”