Bossier City Fifth grader saves classmate's life - KSLA News 12 Shreveport, Louisiana News Weather & Sports

By Tracy Clemons – bio|e-mail

BOSSIER CITY, LA (KSLA)- The Central Park Elementary School family in Bossier City is proud and thankful after a student saved her classmate's life. The fifth graders were in the cafeteria when Kaleb Ortega started choking.

"I was not hungry...I decided to eat a hard taco with meat, and then it got stuck in my throat," Kaleb says.

Most of his classmates didn't know what to do.

"I was hitting my chest, and then she came," he says.

The "she" he refers to was Shacoria Jones.

"My friends told me that he was choking. I didn't know he was choking, and then his eyes were red and he couldn't hardly breathe," Shacoria says.

She tells KSLA News 12 she just did what came naturally-"I went down there and did like this to him and it went down and he started breathing a lot."

"She squished my stomach, and the hard taco got unstuck and went down in my stomach," says Kaleb.

Their teacher says it all happened so fast that no one really had time to think, but luckily Shacoria leaped into action as quickly as she did.

"By the time I made that turn around there to him, he was already breathing and coughing and kind of just trying to catch his breath," says Wendy Goodwin.

Shacoria says her mom taught her what to do in this kind of situation.

Not only was Shacoria Central Park Elementary School's hero, but she's also the Student of the Year. When we asked how it felt for everyone around school to call her a hero, she said: "special."

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