By Eric Carpenter
The Orange County Register
CYPRESS, Calif. — Sam Barrera, 15, clears his little brother’s airway several months after doing the same for his teacher.
All this attention is really beyond embarrassing for Sam Barrera. But he can’t help it: The high school sophomore is being called a hero again.
Barrera, 15, gained national recognition in March when he performed the Heimlich maneuver on his freshman English teacher, who was choking on an almond at the start of class.
Last week, Barrera had just returned home from soccer practice. His brother Raymond, 8, was just home from Pop Warner football practice. Their grandmother put a plate of tacos on the table, and they dived in.
A few bites in, Raymond paused. Then he bolted from the table to find his mom.
He couldn’t speak. Couldn’t breathe. He was choking.
His mother, Lisa Barrera, panicked. She ran to call 911, temporarily forgetting that her eldest son had a history of rescuing choking victims.
“When I saw what was happening, I just put down my taco and walked over to him,” Sam Barrera said Tuesday. “I put my arms around him, found the belly button and pulled in and up.”
Within only a few thrusts, the ground beef and taco shell lodged in Raymond’s throat came flying out. His airway was cleared within a minute, before paramedics were called.
Raymond turned to his brother with a wide-eyed stare and yelled, “You saved me!”
Barrera said he didn’t think much of it, gave his brother a hug, then went back to eating his taco.
He said it was much the same as trying to help his teacher, Judy Rader, except that Raymond was “smaller and moved around a lot more.”
Barrera’s grandfather, Luis Castillo, called The Orange County Register on Tuesday — not so much looking for more attention for his grandson, he said, but to emphasize the importance of CPR and training in lifesaving techniques.
“I feel like every student should be learning the Heimlich maneuver and learning how to react in an emergency,” Castillo said. “You never know when you’ll need it.”
Word that Barrera had rescued another person from choking traveled fast around Cypress High School on Tuesday. Rader heard about it and alerted Principal Ben Carpenter.
When Barrera greeted the principal while headed to geometry class, he was shocked that Carpenter had heard about it, too.
“I told him, ‘Sam, most of us go through our whole life without rescuing anybody,” Carpenter said. “You’ve saved two people already.”
Fire officials say that people react differently when their airway is blocked. But unless the obstruction is freed, a lack of oxygen to the brain could certainly result in death.
At the end of the last school year, Orange County Fire Authority firefighters presented Barrera with a letter of commendation.
Since then, Barrera enrolled in the firefighting explorers program and is learning the basics of firefighting once a week at a Buena Park station. His dream is to be a firefighter and paramedic.
Barrera said he’s starting to think people are testing him.
“It feels like they must be doing it on purpose,” he joked. “This was a little more scary because it was my little brother. I was just glad I was there.”
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