SrA Melynda Kesterson Performs Heimlich Maneuver; Saves Child
Story & Photo by 2nd Lt. Elena O’Bryan - Posted Nov, 2002
Early one evening Senior Airman (SrA) Melynda Kesterson of the Western Air Defense Sector (WADS), Washington Air National Guard was on her way to McChord Air Force Base to work, when she realized her car needed gas.
Airman Kesterson pulled into a local gas station, filled up and was turning back onto the main road. A truck pulled in front of her, delaying her for a few moments, and SrA Kesterson happened to look in her rear-view mirrior and notice the doors of a car still at the gas station suddenly fling open. The driver began to frantically attend to a passenger. Airman Kesterson jumped out of her car and ran back to see what was going on.
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The driver was a young woman, and the passenger was a 2-year-old girl, who was coughing and choking as her skin began to turn blue! The gas station owner called 911, but no one seemed to know how to help the little girl. However, Airman Kesterson had been trained in CPR and other emergency first-aid techniques by the Washington National Guard. She went into action.
“I was like jello,” the girl’s mother said. “The girl in uniform was so supportive. I looked at her and told her my daughter was choking on a piece of gum and couldn’t breathe.”
Although she appeared calm, Airman Kesterson said she was actually terrified, but she picked up the little girl and immediately began administering the Heimlich maneuver after checking for an obstruction in her airway.
The little girl’s eyes appeared glassy as they looked at Kesterson, but the girl was still conscious. Soon the little girl revived and grabbed Airman Kesterson’s finger, which she held tightly until police and firefighters arrived a few minutes later.
As she went on her way to work, Airman Kesterson couldn't help but mull over all of the coincidences that had led up to her being in the right place at the right time. "If the truck had moved faster I wouldn’t have been there. If I hadn’t gotten the gas, I wouldn’t have been there."
Airman Kesterson arrived at work and went in to see her husband, also an Air Guardsman, working at WADS. She put her head on his shoulder and began to cry as a rush of emotions overwhelmed her.
"All I could think about was my husband and our own children", she said. They have two children of their own - 11 and 7 years of age. “I thought about how fragile children are,” she said. “But I also remembered thinking that the little girl would still have the chance to grow up.”
During a ceremony at WADS six days later, the young girl's mother again thanked Airman Kesterson in person for her heroic actions. “I was very honored to meet her again,” she said.
Airman Kesterson's husband said “I’m really proud of her, and not only because she saved a life", he explained. He said he was happy his wife decided to enlist in the Air National Guard last year. She had been active duty Air Force for two years and then entered the Army Guard after a civilian break.
Airman Kesterson said she missed the Air Force and was happy to work at McChord. “The Air Force was all I ever knew. So it was like coming home,” she said. “I dragged my husband over here from the Army Guard.”
When she was a little girl and her grandparents kept horses in the McChord stables, Airman Kesterson would look at the WADS building and wonder about it. “Once I got out of the Air Force, I realized that’s where I’m supposed to be,” she said. “Now I stand in the parking lot of the WADS building and look at the stables,” she said.
Working at WADS as a Tracker, she said she has a new sense of purpose, knowing she is doing something important. At WADS, she has the chance to save more lives every day. Now, because of her quick thinking and cool head, a little girl will be able to grow up and maybe live out her dreams too.
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