School employee in Alabama rescues choking child at basketball game

An Alabama school service officer is being hailed as a hero for saving the life of a choking child at a high school basketball tournament earlier this month.

“I’ve known Officer Burden for the past 20 years,” Albertville High School Principal Jordan Phillips told WHNT about the hero school’s resource officer. “He was a former student of mine at Crossville High School when I taught there. I’m just proud of this guy and everything he does for our school. full circle to where he was my student and now we are working together.”

Jonathon Bearden, a school resource officer at Albertville High School, was attending a basketball tournament at a local high school last weekend when a mother rushed in holding her choking child in her arms, WHNT reported.

“I look up and see that the woman is just running from the podium, holding a child in front of her,” Bearden said. “She says, ‘He’s not breathing, he’s not breathing.’ I don’t know if dad mode worked… cop mode… first responder mode, but I took it from her and turned it over, started hitting it a few times on the back, tilted it down.”

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Bearden said he had previously performed CPR on the elderly and adults, but doing CPR on a child was “a first”. He is a father of two and said, “As a father, you kind of understand that you might have to do this… so I just did what I was taught.”

“I heard a little cough and then he started crying and I said, ‘If we cry, we breathe!’ “Burden said.

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Exterior of Albertville High School in Alabama.
(Google Maps)

Bearden told WHNT that he has been in contact with the child’s family and that the young child was released from the hospital earlier this month and is in good condition. A Facebook post written by a witness to the incident and released by the Albertville Police Department said the baby was reportedly born prematurely.

Principal Phillips said Bearden’s actions summed up the SRO’s work to protect children in schools.

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“I think it shows what the job really is,” Phillips added. “The police sometimes get a bad rap and it’s not fair and these guys are here to serve and protect. Officer Burden showed it.”

Albertville Police Department in Alabama.
(Google Maps)

However, for Bearden, he does not want to be the center of attention, but instead wants to highlight “the police and what we do every day.”

“I think the role we play in the school environment is critical,” Burden said. “I think what we do every day is almost as important as maybe CPR or something like that. just – kids call it “shit”. I’m just trying to shed some light on the police and what we do every day.”

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Fox News Digital contacted the Albertville school administration but received no response as of press time.