Resident saves child on airplane using Heimlich maneuver
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Jerry Fredrickson has maintained his CPR/First Aid training since he was 15 years old.
Jerry Fredrickson of Haines has maintained his CPR/First Aid card since he was 15. In high school in Ketchikan, he entered life-saving skills competitions held by the Health Occupation Students of America.
And he received first-aid training again in March during a job-training program.
So the 25-year-old apprentice equipment operator didn't have to think much to save a boy seated next him who was choking on ice on an Alaska Airlines flight into Juneau Monday night.
"I didn't think about what was going on. I went into fight-or-flight mode," Fredrickson said in an interview. "It was pretty intense. When it was over, I thought, 'Did that just happen?'"
Fredrickson was honored with the airline's Good Samaritan Award for using the Heimlich maneuver to dislodge three chunks of ice lodged in the youngster's windpipe.
Fredrickson, mom Heidi Marie Fredrickson and dad Adam McAllister were returning from a trip to Oregon, but couldn't get three seats together on the flight. So Fredrickson ended up in an aisle seat next to the Juneau youth, who was traveling alone after visiting family in Seattle.
Fredrickson said he and the boy were both watching movies until about 7:15 p.m. when the youngster tapped on his shoulder frantically and signaled with his hands around his throat that he was choking. Fredrickson had the boy stand up in place, wrapped his arms around his belly and with an upward motion, ejected the ice.
It all happened so fast that passengers seated nearby had to ask what had happened, Fredrickson said. He took the boy to the flight attendant's station, where the youth was kept under observation until returning to his seat.
"He must have told me 'thank-you' five or six times," Fredrickson said. "He brought me a warm cookie."
During the flight, Jerry's mom and dad were notified by a flight attendant that their son had just saved a youth.
"I'm personally a panic person, so I'm glad he was there," Heidi Fredrickson said of her son via electronic message.
She noted that her son also watched a surgery performed on his father. "He was always interested in the medical field, college just wasn't his thing... He was in the right place at the right time for a reason," she said.
