In Grove City, Ohio, Sami was at a Kroeger pharmacy with her two young sons when something extraordinary happened. It was extraordinary because it was frightening in the worst kind of way. It was also extraordinary because of how two people nearby chose to deal with it.
While the family was standing near the pharmacy, Sami’s youngest son, Jaxen, began choking on a sucker. By the time his mom reached him, he was turning blue. He went limp in her arms, and she pleaded to the pharmacist and her assistant… “What do I do? What do I do?” And as the frantic mom awaited instructions, all Jaxen’s older brother, Kaden, could do was watch in horror as his younger brother suffered.
Sami herself was starting to go into shock, but the pharmacist, Erin Gronauer, and her assistant, Tami Beasy, quickly shouted instructions to her. They couldn’t get to the young boy in time because of the way the pharmacy set up, so they yelled for Sami to toss him over her knee and hit him in the back. Sami did as she was told, and she struck Jaxen in the back. Then she struck him several more times in the back. Then, finally, the sucker was dislodged and fell out of his mouth. He could breathe again, and his color started coming back.
Sami was certainly in a daze when the terrible incident started, blanking out and not knowing what to do… because it was HER kid, and that can make a big difference. But when those two professionals started yelling instructions at her, she snapped out of it long enough to save her young son’s life.
She is well aware, however, she could not have done it without the help of Erin and Tami.
Sami posted about the incident on Facebook. And at the end of her post she wrote to those two hero pharmacists: “I hope this reaches you. I hope you know how much I appreciate everything you have done. Because of you he smiled on the way home. Because of you I heard him giggle in his room just now. Because of you I have time. Time to enjoy these moments. ‘Thank you’ seems like the smallest words on the planet. but has the most powerful meaning. You took just a few minutes out of your day to give me a lifetime more with my son and I will forever be grateful.”
