Blog

Dallas Mayor Relies on Scout Skills to Save Choking Woman

I learned it in Boy Scouts.

It’s a phrase we hear a lot when lifesaving skills snap a former Scout into action. This week, Scout training is even proving to help a mayor keep his citizens safe.

Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings jumped to save Helen Mayer, who was choking at a Mexican restaurant in downtown Dallas. Other patrons thought Mayer was having a heart attack, but the Mayor was prepared and knew exactly what to do.

How? The Boy Scouts, of course.

Mayor Rawlings credits Scouts and his lifeguarding experience with teaching him the lifesaving abdominal thrusts that did just that for Mayer. But she didn’t know who was saving her life. Her friends tipped her off that it was, in fact, the city mayor.

“He’s like my guardian angel,” Mayer told ABC’s WFAA 8.

Learn more about how the mayor saved Mayer in the video below.

This isn’t the first time Scout skills have launched a hero into a lifesaving scenario. If you like this story, check out our post on a Goodwill employee who rescued a coworker when he began to choke.

Avatar photo

Gina

This blog is managed and written by staff of the Communications Department of the Boy Scouts of America.