A 70-year-old Morgan Hill woman was lucky that she was eating
lunch in the same room as three sheriff’s deputies last week,
because without them she might not be alive today.
A 70-year-old Morgan Hill woman was lucky that she was eating lunch in the same room as three sheriff’s deputies last week, because without them she might not be alive today.
The woman was eating at Sizzler, 15900 Monterey Road, with her caregiver about 12:30 June 4, while three Santa Clara County deputies on their lunch break were dining a few tables away. The three deputies, who are assigned to security at the South County Courthouse, had just finished jogging and were wearing civilian clothes.
One of the deputies, Ledia Carlsen, was at the salad bar when she heard someone say loudly that a patron of the restaurant was choking. She looked over and saw an elderly woman lying on the floor, with a man standing over her talking on a cell phone. The man told Carlsen that he was on the line with 911.
Carlsen ran back to the table where she and deputies Darrick Lopez and Travis Eastman were sitting. She picked up her cell phone and dialed directly to the county dispatch center to request paramedics.
Lopez and Eastman went to the woman, whose face was rapidly turning blue while someone performed chest compressions in an attempt to treat her.
“I identified myself as a deputy, and we took over,” said Lopez, who asked the woman some questions to which she did not respond while a “gurgling sound” came from her chest. He lifted the woman to a sitting position and performed first-aid.
“I decided to apply abdominal thrusts, and I was thinking I hope this was the right move,” Lopez said. As the chest compressions performed by the previous patron seemed not to work, Lopez thought the abdominal thrusts were the best option to remove the blockage in her airway.
After two thrusts, the woman stopped Lopez as she reached into her mouth and pulled out a three-inch piece of unchewed roast beef.
Although her breathing immediately returned to normal, paramedics and Morgan Hill police arrived at the scene and continued to help her.
The whole incident, from when Carlsen first noticed the choking woman until she was able to breathe again with the deputies’ assistance, only lasted about 15 seconds, which was long enough for a large crowd to gather. Eastman said he went outside the restaurant and flagged down a nearby fire department truck.
“Deputy Lopez was the guy responsible for saving this gal’s life. We just assisted him,” Eastman said.
About 25 people were in the restaurant at the time of the emergency.
Lopez said in his 25 years as a Santa Clara County deputy, he has never been present on the scene in the midst of a medical emergency, but his training took over. Deputies are trained annually for CPR and first-aid.
“I told her the two of us are going to be connected forever,” Lopez said.
