Wilson County SRO shares account of saving student from choking

MT. JULIET, Tenn. (WKRN) — Tense moments inside a classroom at Green Hill High School in Mt. Juliet. A student started choking on a bottlecap, and the school nurse rushed to the classroom to do the Heimlich maneuver.

Moments before that, school resource officer Corporal Chase Dillard sensed something was wrong, even though he hadn’t been called.

“I noticed the nurse going up the staircase, and it looked like kind of an emergency situation,” Corporal Dillard said.

He followed to see if she needed help, and she did when her attempts to dislodge the object weren’t working.

“It’s just second nature. I just jumped in and was able to dislodge it,” Corporal Dillard said. “Once we got it up, and they knew that the kid was gonna be okay, it was like a sigh of relief.”

The entire incident, which happened in May of 2022, was caught on a camera inside the classroom. Corporal Dillard said the father of the student reached out to him to thank him for saving his son’s life, but he said it’s all part of the job.

“Got to be aware and be on your p’s and q’s at all times, because you never know what’s going to happen,” Corporal Dillard said. “It’s kind of the nature of law enforcement. You don’t know from day to day what’s going to happen, so what your day might entail. When you get in situations like that, you just kind of revert back to your training, and you go for it.”