An Oak Harbor High School senior may have saved another student’s life when he performed the Heimlich maneuver on her during lunch shortly before Thanksgiving break.

Noah Allen was the first student in the cafeteria to react when fellow senior Chloe McNichols started choking on her meal Nov. 22.

“I was sitting there, and I figured out I couldn’t breathe,” McNichols said. “I started panicking.”

Allen was alerted to the emergency by the commotion McNichols’ friends made.

“I was just eating my lunch with my friends in the senior loft, and then I heard one of her friends scream behind me, and I look over, and I see her stand up and it looked like she was choking,” Allen said.

Though he froze at first, he said he quickly remembered what to do and gave McNichols the Heimlich maneuver.

“That was the day we actually had our first encounter with each other,” Allen said.

Allen is a good person to have around during an emergency. He had to learn the Heimlich maneuver and other basic first aid skills for his job with the Navy Child and Youth Programs and has performed it before on a child.

Allen said he remembers other students pulling out their phones to take videos of the action.

“Nobody else was helping,” he said. “I knew a couple of them personally, and I told them I was kind of disappointed.”

He said he personally asked everyone he knew who had made a recording to delete the video.

Allen was presented with a school board recognition award during a board meeting Dec. 13.

“Thank you for being that student that will step up and take action when action is needed,” said board President John Diamond.

From this incident and others, Allen said he has decided to pursue a career as an EMT or EMS first responder after high school.