Around 11:35 A.M. on Tuesday, Kalamazoo Public Safety Officer Jason Gates stopped a local resident for a traffic violation in the 4100 block of South Burdick Street. As he approached the vehicle, Officer Gates realized that the driver, a woman, was choking on food and struggling to breathe. Gates then performed Heimlich maneuver and the woman began breathing again.
What felt like a scene from a friendly neighborhood superhero movie was actually happening in real life.
"I just feel like I did what I'm paid to do. I'm glad for her that I happened to be there." Gates said in an interview reported by MLive.
The saving via Heimlich maneuver incident caught on video made KDPS Gates an overnight sensation with people calling him a hero for rescuing a choking woman during a traffic stop.
The Heimlich maneuver is an emergency technique use for preventing suffocation when a person's airway becomes blocked by a piece of food or other object.
"I'm sure this happens to police officers all the time, but rarely does this get caught on a dash cam," Gates humbly said during a press conference Tuesday at KDPS headquarters.
Gates admitted he never expected an otherwise a routine traffic stop would turn into a likely life-saving encounter when he stopped a vehicle.
"For the first second or so I thought she might be trying to just get out of a ticket and then I realized she was in legitimate respiratory distress, so I tried to dislodge the item from her throat by just hitting her on the back," Gates said.
Seeing that his initial effort was not providing any relief, "I got her out and used the Heimlich for the first time in my nine year police career, and it worked," Gates added.
