A Perry Hy-Vee employee is lucky a courageous patron was in the right place at the right time during the lunch hour recently.
Ken West was enjoying lunch from the Hy-Vee kitchen on July 14th when he noticed an employee was struggling.
“A gentleman stood up from the table and put is hands to his neck. He sat back down and then he got back up and put his hands back to his neck. So I just stood up and went over and gave him the Heimlich maneuver a couple times, told (someone) to call 911 and it finally came up.”
West says he was trained on how to do the maneuver a long time ago but it wasn’t something he was necessarily comfortable doing and hoped he’d never have to.
“I just never gave much thought to it. I just saw he needed help and went over and helped him. I’m glad that he’s alright.”
Store Director Matt May says he’s thankful there are people like West out there in the community.
“It was just a great act of heroism here at the Perry Hy-Vee and we wanted to recognize him today and thank him for what he did.”
Matt says with all the negative news in the world he felt this was a great opportunity to shine light on the good.
“Anytime we can bring a positive to the news, especially here in Perry, we want to take advantage and recognize people like Ken, and I know there’s many more out there like him so hopefully we’ll have a chance in the future to (recognize them) as well.”
Hy-Vee gave West a $50 store gift card as a token of their appreciation and the Perry Chamber awarded him with Perry Bucks and a box of chocolates.
