Teacher Becomes Lifesaver, Performs CPR When Queens 6th Grader Collapses
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- A Queens math teacher was being hailed as a hero after her quick thinking helped saved a student's life.
The teacher performed CPR and used a defibrillator after the girl suffered a seizure.
As CBS2's Steve Langford reported, on Thursday morning, at Louis Armstrong Middle School in East Elmhurst, a sixth grader collapsed in the hall and stopped breathing.
"She was just lying there motionless," math teacher Amy Spears recalled.
She heard children yelling for help and came running out of her classroom.
"I could see that she was obviously not alert and unresponsive," Spears said.
Spears is trained in CPR but never imagined she'd one day be called on to save a student's life.
"I used to say to myself there's no way I'm going to be able to do this. I would probably panic," she said.
Spears along with assistant principal Dianne Hayden and others revived the child with the assistance of one of the school's defibrillators, as paramedics raced to the school. The student is now reported to be recovering in the hospital.
Now, more than ever at the Louis Armstrong Middle School you can say to yourself 'what a wonderful world.'
Spears said in over 20 years of teaching she's never experienced anything like this, and added that it hit home because she has a daughter the same age.