Chester fifth-grader doing well after choking on chip at lunch

Brady Linerud will never look at taco salad the same way after choking during lunch at Chester Elementary last week. His friend Jacob Schwinning and the school staff came to his rescue, leaving him with nothing more than a sore throat.

Brady, a fifth-grader, was in a hurry, eating quickly when a chip from the taco salad lodged in his throat. “I didn’t even get one chance to chew,” he said. “It just got stuck there. I couldn’t breathe.”

He coughed, trying to clear his airway. “I ran to the drinking fountain and tried to get a drink,” he said. “It didn’t work.”

Jacob was with his friend and saw his face turn red as he bent over, struggling for air. “I just ran to Dee and got her attention,” he said, referring to lead cook Dee Grant.

Grant was unable to clear the obstruction completely and hustled Brady to secretary Linda Johnson in the office, who performed the Heimlich maneuver. Johnson said the school staff is required to renew their first-aid card every two years, but she’s never had to use the Heimlich on anyone. “This was the first time in 23 years,” she said.

Johnson said everything went smoothly. Someone called 911 while she helped Brady. “It took a whole team of people,” she said.

“At that point I could breathe, but my throat really, really hurt,” Brady said. He said having the Heimlich performed on him was weird. “It hurt a little bit, too.” Paramedics pronounced him fit to go back to class, but said the sore throat would last a while.

Principal Cindy Sothen took him back to class after he had recovered. “Jacob was so relieved to see that Brady was OK,” she said.

“It was freaky,” Jacob said. “His face was so red. That was the scariest thing ever.”

Brady is just happy his friend was with him when it happened. “I’m sort of the class clown,” he said, and someone else might have though he was kidding around. “Jake really knew that it was serious.”

He was well enough to go to a basketball tournament in the Tri-Cities over the weekend as planned, but was less than thrilled when the group went out to dinner at a Mexican restaurant. “I couldn’t eat it,” he said. “I was scared.”

Brady said he plans to stay away from taco salad, just in case.