By Shirley Brinkley
The Virginian-Pilot
SMITHFIELD, Va. — Stacie Leigh Proctor has a prestigious new medal to add to the badges worn on her Girl Scout uniform.
A 12-year-old cadet with Troop 482 in Smithfield, Stacie was in the right place at the right time and was able to save her father’s life.
On June 7 she was awarded the Life Saving Medal of Honor at the Scouts’ Green and Gold Banquet at Benn’s United Methodist Church in Smithfield.
The life-threatening episode took place last Valentine’s Day, as Stacie and her dad, Robert G. Proctor , were eating dinner while watching a TV program.
Proctor began choking on a piece of chicken, and Stacie rushed into the kitchen to ask her aunt for help.
“I have difficulty swallowing, and the chicken stuck in my throat,” Proctor said. “I couldn’t breathe and was ready to pass out, but Stacie came back into the room and took over. She used the Heimlich maneuver, and the chicken popped out of my mouth.”
The Heimlich maneuver is an emergency technique used to eject an object, such as food, from the trachea of a choking person. The technique employs a firm upward thrust just below the rib cage to force air from the lungs.
During those few moments of distress, Stacie admitted that she was scared, “but she didn’t show it,” Proctor said. “She just did what she had to do.”
Ironically, it was Proctor who taught CPR to a Brownie troop that included Stacie and seven other young girls a few years ago.
Until medical problems changed Proctor’s life, he was an emergency medical technician and CPR instructor with the Isle of Wight Rescue Squad.
When his kidneys began to fail, his father donated one of his kidneys to his son. After about 10 years, the transplant began to fail, and Proctor, 39, is now on disability; he has experienced five strokes since last October and is on dialysis for four hours a day, three times a week.
Through Scouting, Stacie has been skating and bowling and has had an opportunity to travel to Washington and New York City. She also attended the Broadway musical “Wicked” and a Virginia Symphony performance at Chrysler Hall in Norfolk.
A rising seventh-grader and honor student, Stacie will begin classes at Smithfield Middle School in September and plays soccer for Isle of Wight Parks and Recreation.
“My favorite subject is math. I was in the Drama Club and was in skits and plays at Westside Elementary School. I also played clarinet in the band.”
When she turns 16, Stacie wants to join the Isle of Wight Rescue Squad. “At 18, I can ride on the ambulance.”
Stacie said she is determined to become a pediatric endocrinologist.
“She’s gotten a good start,” her father said, smiling.
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