A teenage fast food worker is being praised as a hero after she sprang into action to save a choking customer.
Sydney Raley, 15, was working the drive-thru window at a McDonald's in Eden Prairie, Minnesota when she noticed a customer was in distress.
"I noticed that she was coughing profusely and her daughter just had this look on her face like sheer terror," Raley told KARE11. "I could tell oh, crap, she's choking! Just seeing that visceral reaction I knew we need to act fast."
Raley jumped through the drive-thru window and told the woman's daughter to call 911. Then, she got the woman out of her car and put the first aid training she received from the American Red Cross to work.
"I started doing the Heimlich maneuver, but I'm not really strong so it didn’t work the first couple times," she said.
Raley called for help from a bystander in the parking lot and he eventually succeeded in dislodging a Chicken McNugget the woman was choking on.
"It could've ended a lot worse but I am super thankful for that bystander who helped so much," Raley told KARE11. "I am decent at first aid, but if it weren't for him and our efforts together, it could've ended so much worse."
Police officers who responded to the scene rewarded Raley's selfishness and courage by giving her $100.
"Our crime fund gave every officer $50 to hand out to wherever we feel the need, [including] if somebody did outstanding work, above and beyond," Sergeant Scott Mittelstadt told the station. "She is well-deserving of that money."
Raley said it's "insane" she was rewarded with cash when she was just doing what she thought was the right thing to do.
"You feel as though like, I'm actually capable of contributing to society and actually like capable of making a difference," she said.
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