A 7-year-old elementary school student is calling his school bus driver a "hero" after the driver jumped to his aid recently.
Raquel Radford Baker, a veteran driver for Dallas Independent School District, had been on a school bus outside Seagoville North Elementary School on the morning of Sept. 29 with several students when one of them began to choke.
The incident was caught on camera in surveillance footage provided by the Dallas ISD.
Preston, 7, a first grader at Seagoville North, is seen laughing with other students when he appears to put something in his mouth. Seconds later, he alerts Radford Baker that he had swallowed a coin and motions for help.
"There's a penny in my throat!" Preston said.
"A penny?!" Radford Baker responded.
Radford Baker, who is trained in CPR and first aid, quickly jumped into action.
"He appeared to be sick, as if he needed to throw up," Radford Baker recalled.
But the boy didn't need to vomit.
"I opened the door. I said, 'Go ahead and throw up.' And he turned back to me and he was – looked like he was in trouble with breathing," Radford Baker continued.
The bus driver then carried Preston off the bus toward a nearby sidewalk and began to perform the Heimlich maneuver.
Radford Baker said she was thinking at the time, "He can't die in my arms. I have to save his life. God help me."
She had to perform multiple rounds of the Heimlich maneuver until the coin -- which was actually a quarter -- came out.
After the incident, Preston described Radford Baker as a "hero."
"I think she's my hero," the boy said. "Because she saved my life."
This week, Preston, his mom Gia Bell and Radford Baker reunited for the first time and Bell took the opportunity to thank the "hero" bus driver.
"I was able to look at her in her eyes and tell her how much I thanked her for saving my son's life that day," Bell said.
Preston, who promised not to play with quarters again, also had a message for his bus driver.
"I'll see her at the bus stop. Always picking me up," he said. "She's an angel."
Although Radford Baker has been working for Dallas ISD for the last 17 years, it's the first time she's had to save a child's life. The bus driver told the school district she encourages fellow drivers to learn CPR and first aid skills.
