Jill Schramm/MDN Skylynn Saari, Vaneica Parizek and Nichole Jorgensen get together Friday in Perkins Restaurant, where they had assisted in helping a choking diner Feb. 26.

A quick-thinking restaurant staff and a customer who was willing to step up made a life-saving difference for a choking victim in Minot last week.

Vaneica Parizek of Minot, who provided CPR, said it wasn’t the day she expected to have when she walked into Perkins on Monday, Feb. 26, to meet with friends. But she said the unfolding of events emphasized the importance of not being afraid to help someone in need.

An emergency response was set in motion that morning when server Nichole Jorgensen was tending to her customers and heard a soft voice requesting assistance at a neighboring table. Among the people in the booth, she noticed a man seated slumped against the wall. When she couldn’t rouse him, she yelled for someone to call 911.

Skylynn Saari, also working as a server that day, helped Jorgensen hold the man until 911 was called. At the direction of emergency dispatch, the two servers and a couple of customers moved him to lie on the floor. He had stopped breathing when Parizek suddenly appeared, asked why no one had started CPR and knelt down to initiate it.

Parizek said she had just walked in the door when she noticed the hush over the restaurant.

“It seemed like time had stopped,” she said. “Everybody was frozen.”

She felt something pressing her back to move forward through the restaurant until she came upon the man lying prone on the floor between tables. His skin was blue and his eyes dilated.

Parizek proceeded to give CPR the old-style way – by alternating chest compressions and blowing into the mouth. Saari assisted by holding the man’s head as directed by Parizek to keep the airway open.

The technique was successful in bringing color back into his eyes and then dislodging the food blocking his windpipe, allowing the normal color to return to his skin as well. Parizek and Saari turned him to his side to alleviate further choking.

Meanwhile, another customer had stayed on the line with the 911 operator and others in the restaurant pushed tables away from the scene.

It wasn’t long before police came rushing in.

“As soon as they came, I turned around and prayed,” Parizek said. “I know that God was with me and he supported me and he gave me the strength and the courage.”

She knows that to be true because she never has been trained in CPR. She recently has been intending to get CPR certification but has been waiting for a class to become available. Her life-saving CPR was based on an episode of a television drama she had once watched.

Given her lack of expertise, she said, she remained unusually calm as she responded to subconscious guidance through the CPR steps.

“Something was with me and coaching me, and I know it was God. Definitely God, because he gave me the strength and the confidence and I knew everything was going to be all right because he was there with me,” Parizek said. “There was no hesitation. There was no doubt in my mind. I just knew that if I did something, he would be OK.”

The choking victim was looking much better when the ambulance crew had him ready for transport, and the restaurant later was informed its customer, whose identity was unknown, was recovering.

“I was really glad to be there for him, and I want people to step up when people are in need,” Parizek said. “If somebody is in desperate need, assist if you can. Don’t be afraid.”

For her, she said, knowing a life was saved makes that Monday her best day ever.