14-year-old saved by friend's mom

AUSTIN (KXAN) - The Austin-Travis County EMS has recently started a new program where they go to an office or school and spend 10 minutes teaching basic CPR or first aid.

It turns out that simple instruction came in handy the other month for one Austin mom when she saw Ana Browder, 14, choking on a taco at the Hog Eye Festival in Elgin.

"Ana was very, very hungry. She hadn't eaten all day long for whatever reason," said Patricia Wagner.

"I had the last bite, and I kind of thought it was a little big," said Ana Browder.

"She opened her mouth the widest it would go, and I was like, 'OK,'" said Marisa Wagner, Ana's friend.

"I was like, 'Can you swallow that? It's huge,'" said Cynthia Smith, Ana's friend.

Turns out, Ana couldn't swallow it.

"Then, all of a sudden she was just bending over," said Marisa.

"I couldn't breathe, and I started to black out real quick," said Browder.

Luckily, her friend's mom, Patricia, was there.

"I came up behind her and was like, 'Ana, can you breathe? And she was like, 'No,'" said Patricia. "And I just pushed on her, and eventually it came out."

"The Heimlich maneuver is one of those things that's really easy to learn," said Frank Urias, assistant director of the Austin-Travis County EMS.

It turns out that two weeks before this happened, Patricia learned the Heimlich maneuver in a Take 10 class from the Austin-Travis County EMS.

"The focus of EMS is changing, and we want to make our citizens our first-responders," said Urias.

And the class did exactly what it was supposed to do - that day at the festival.

"That was just it, having the whole confidence level to know something has to be done," said Patricia.

Ana's learned her own lesson.

"Chew your food well," said Browder.

To have the Austin-Travis County EMS come to a work place to teach a 10-minute Take 10 class, call (512) 972-7277 for more information.

So far, they have trained about 6,000 people in the last year.