Postal worker performs Heimlich maneuver on choking resident while on Washington, DC mail route

Donald Proctor was the right letter carrier on the right route when a woman got a piece of cheese stuck in her throat in March.

“I had a piece of feta cheese and I put it in my mouth and I think I chewed it, but it got stuck, and I knew immediately that I was in trouble,” said Jennifer Patterson, who lives on Garfield Street in Northwest D.C.

She was choking and in desperate need of help.

“I was trying and I couldn’t get any air,” she said. “I couldn’t breathe.”  

Patterson got to her home’s emergency button.

“Immediately, I thought they’re not going to make it, because I think you have four minutes or something before you choke to death,” she said.

But Proctor was approaching her home to deliver her mail.

“As I was going in motion to push the button, the mail came through the mail slot,” Patterson said.

Proctor almost left, but he heard something on the other side of the door.

“It sounds like somebody’s choking; it sounds like somebody’s trying to talk,” he said. “I run down there; her face is purple,”  

“He said, ‘Are you choking or are you having an allergic reaction?’” Patterson said.

“She tries her best to say that she’s choking, so I whacked her on the back a couple of times,” Proctor said. “That did nothing. I turned around, did that Heimlich maneuver about two or three times.”  

“I was lucky that he cared enough to be willing to help, and then, he knew what to do,” Patterson said.

Once he knew Patterson was OK, Proctor carried on delivering the mail – never telling his bosses what happened.

But Patterson wouldn’t let his heroism go unrecognized. She sent a letter to the U.S. Postal Service explaining she felt obligated to let Proctor’s supervisors know what he did for her.

Proctor received the Postmaster General Hero Award Friday.

“You know, I just come to work and just do my job. That’s it,” he said. “You know, but actually my mindset is literally the same as it was before and after that day.”

“I just feel so blessed and so lucky to have him there,” Patterson said. “I call him my angel. I told him he’s now my angel forever.”