Hero Harnett County teenager jumps into action to save choking woman

The incident happened at the Hardee's on Main Street in Lillington on Tuesday.

Anson Everette, a junior at Harnett Central High School, was going through the drive-thru at Hardee's when an employee came to the window in a panic.

"She came up and said that there was this old lady choking and none of them new how to do [the Heimlich maneuver,] and she was basically about to die," said Everette.

Donna Singler was at work when the incident happened.

"All I know is she was eating a hotdog and when I came back inside she was choking, and her husband was trying to do the Heimlich maneuver and he tried his best," said Singler.

That's when Everette jumped into action to help save the woman's life using the Heimlich maneuver, which the Red Cross now calls abdominal thrusts.

"So I pick her up and I start giving her the Heimlich for about 30 seconds until EMS comes by. By that time, I had already got some of the hotdog unlodged from her throat and got her breathing again," said Everette.

Abdominal thrusts are performed by standing behind a choking person, wrapping your arms around them, grasping your fists together and pressing hard into the abdomen with a quick, upward thrust — in a J-like motion.

"I was worried that I could have possibly hurt the lady or had somehow, in a way, affected her but in that time it was like, just forget it. You got to do it or this lady — you're going to see somebody die today.

Everett said he wants to be a firefighter. He's been getting training at Harnett Central High School's fire tech program.

"It makes me feel good, actually. You don't get it. If this program was not in schools, he may have never got that situation to help that lady out," said fire tech program instructor Johnathan Denton.

Everette's father has been a fireman in Cary for 24 years.

"Anson has grown up around the fire service. He wants to have a career as a fireman, and we think he'll be a really good fireman one day," said Everette's mother Misty Lyons.

The 80-year-old woman was taken to the hospital for observation and is expected to be OK.