CENTER – On Tuesday, Sept. 24, at the Town of Center Board of Trustees and Center Police Department Chief Aaron Fresquez honored two students who helped save the life of their fellow classmate at Center Consolidated School District.  

Fresquez spoke at the meeting, while holding two plaques that he handed to the two students. 

“I wanted to come to this board meeting, to the town, and acknowledge a seventh-grade student and an eighth-grade student. Another kid was choking, now keep in mind, that I found out, that neither one of these kids knew how to perform the Heimlich maneuver or anything like that, but they knew how to react when the situation happened. They ultimately ended up saving a life. I want to present to Armando Ruybal and Aylya Garcia an award for saving someone's life. They had no idea what to do, they never had any type of thing like this happen, but these young adults here reacted, and ultimately saved a life.”    

Fresquez also announced that Saguache County Commissioner Lynne Thompson was present and wanted to present them with an award.  

“On behalf of the Saguache County Board of Commissioners, we wanted to present you with a certificate of appreciation. The following awards are giving to Aylya Garcia and Armando Garcia.” 

Thompson also relayed that the Colorado State Patrol Dispatch and the 911 Authority also thanked the children for what they did.   

According to Superintendent Carrie Zimmerman, two students, Armando Ruybal and Aylya Garcia, noticed their classmate Arian Benitez, choking in the lunchroom of the school.   

Ruybal and Garcia sprang into action and did what they could to help their fellow classmate spit up what he was choking on.   

Garcia spoke about what happened and how she felt about helping her classmate. 

“Arian was sitting with us, and he was eating his food, and we all got up to move with Armando to another table. Arian started walking and he started choking. He was jumping up and down while he was talking. I didn’t notice he was choking at first, then he went to the water fountain and tried drinking water. When I looked at him, he was turning purple, and I noticed the water kept coming out of his mouth, it wouldn’t go down his throat. One of my other friends told me to do something, and Armando came running from across the cafeteria and started hitting him on his back. I then grabbed him too; I didn’t know what to do but I started pushing on his stomach trying to help him. We just kept doing it until he started breathing and then the nurse came and took him,” Garcia said.  

Garcia said that when Benitez returned from seeing the nurse, he thanked her and Armando for helping him.   

Ruybal added, “I saw Arian struggling at first, but wasn’t sure he was choking on something, I thought maybe he was just coughing, but that’s when I saw him panicking. I started trying to help him, I tried to do some kind of maneuver to help him. Then it was me and Aylya trying to help him both, she came to try to help, and we just kept trying to help him back and forth and finally Aylya was able to get it out of him. It felt good to help him. He said thank you for everything, too.”   

The two children were also thanked for saving the young man's life by the residents and town trustees.