A Minnesota teen is being called a hero for saving a woman's life. Sydney Raley, 15, was working at the drive-thru of a McDonald's in Eden Prairie. She handed food to a customer in her car, then noticed the woman coughing.
Sydney realized the woman was choking on a chicken nugget. With that, she sprung into action.
Without hesitating, she dove out the drive-thru window to help the woman, pulling her from the car and telling the woman's daughter, who was also in the car, to call 911.
Sydney also thought to flag someone else down to help. Together, they performed the Heimlich maneuver on the choking woman. Sydney said she learned it when she was 11 at a Red Cross babysitter class and that the training "instantly kicked in."
The chicken nugget didn't fly out right away, though, and took a bit of effort to loosen. "We worked together and were able to successfully dislodge the food from her throat," Sydney said of herself and the bystander who ended up helping.
Shortly after the incident, Sydney's parents arrived to pick her up. "There was an ambulance and a police car sitting there and I looked at my wife and said, 'Please tell me that's not something for Sydney,'" the teen's father Tom told CNN. "And sure enough Sydney is sitting outside waiting for us to pick her up and says, 'So this happened today.'"
Sydney's parents also revealed that the teen is autistic. "We always worried it was going to be a challenge for her, and it's done a complete 180," her father said. "It's actually been a blessing and a gift at this point. All the things we worried about never happened."
Sydney has certainly made her parents and her community proud. Two officers from the Edina Police Department gave her a special reward for her actions: $100 from a fund they use to reward people who do important work in the community. Sydney says the officers also echoed the sentiment she will likely have to get used to hearing. "You're a hero," they said.
