Fast acting police officer saves choking Hamilton girl

A nice summer day in the park for a group of kids on Bay Street North in Hamilton Wednesday was nearly the last the last for one young teen. Fortunately the actions of a quick thinking cop who was in the right place at the right time prevented a tragedy.

Constable Jennifer Lafleur is a 14 year veteran of the Hamilton Police force is just out of the undercover division, which is why she is not shown in the video above. She happened to be on Bay Street right beside Central Park when the call came in.

A young girl, Ana Santos was choking on a piece of candy.

When Lafleur got there she was in bad shape.

“Her eyes were rolling back. She wasn’t responding. She wasn’t able to cough. She wasn’t able to speak.”

Ana herself says the feeling was surreal.

“Actually it was really weird because you cannot feel anything. I just feel like my body went down and like my eyes were closing and my heart was slowing down. I can feel that.”

Her friends were getting frantic but luckily Constable Lafleur had backup. Zusan Abdulkadir-Hassan, a summer intern who was on a ride-along  tried to calm the kids down.

Lafleur was quick to perform the heimlich maneuver on Ana.

“You just react to the situation. That little girl needed help, and I did what I was trained to do.”

Soon, EMS arrived and Ana was taken to hospital for observation. Lafleur hasn’t seen her yet, but has a message for her.

“I would just give her a big hug, and tell her I was glad to see her, and I was glad I was able to help you.”

Ana is grateful too.

“Thanks for the police helping me, because if they didn’t came I probably would die.”

The emergency that had a happy ending was enough inspiration for summer intern Zusan. She is already headed to Mohawk College for a Police Foundations course this fall and now says she is 100% sure she wants to be an officer out on the streets where people need help.