{"id":345109,"date":"2026-06-03T17:57:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-03T17:57:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/345109\/"},"modified":"2026-06-03T17:57:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-03T17:57:08","slug":"13-year-old-fresno-student-saves-classmate-from-choking-on-gum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/345109\/","title":{"rendered":"13-year-old Fresno student saves classmate from choking on gum"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/up3y2t09913ge5wb.jpg\" alt=\"Fresno student honored after saving classmate from choking \" class=\"sr-only\" data-v-2601878a=\"\"\/>  <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/up3y2t09913ge5wb.jpg\" alt=\"Fresno student honored after saving classmate from choking \" loading=\"eager\" fetchpriority=\"high\" class=\"vod-poster-image\" data-v-d69731cc=\"\"\/>    <\/p>\n<p data-v-94395e58=\"\">FRESNO, Calif. &#8211; Heroes come in all ages: this hero is a seventh grader from Fresno who stopped his classmate from choking.<\/p>\n<p>   Student jumps into action <\/p>\n<p original-article-post=\"\" origination_station=\"KTVU\" data-v-ec26887a=\"\" data-v-94395e58=\"\">What we know:<\/p>\n<p data-v-94395e58=\"\">Thirteen-year-old Jermaine Whitehead was in class when his teacher told his peer, Kacen Brown, 12, to stop chewing gum. Instead, Kacen started choking on it.<\/p>\n<p data-v-94395e58=\"\">&#8220;I was so scared \u2013 is he going to survive, is he good?&#8230; I knew nothing, I just tried to save him,&#8221; Jermaine said.<\/p>\n<p data-v-94395e58=\"\">He tried and succeeded. Jermaine jumped into action, thrusting his fists into his classmate&#8217;s belly.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p data-v-94395e58=\"\">The two weren\u2019t that close before, but this scary moment developed their friendship into something greater.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p data-v-94395e58=\"\">&#8220;I know him a lot better now. We are like friends now \u2013 I see him as a best friend to me,&#8221; said Kacen.<\/p>\n<p> Honored by the school <\/p>\n<p original-article-post=\"\" origination_station=\"KTVU\" data-v-ec26887a=\"\" data-v-94395e58=\"\">Dig deeper:<\/p>\n<p data-v-94395e58=\"\">Jermaine was recognized and honored at a Kaster Intermediate school assembly this week for his quick thinking, surrounded by the community, his family, and of course, his new BFF.<\/p>\n<p class=\"group-source-paragraph\" data-v-4fbf7207=\"\">The Source: Interviews by Jermaine Whitehead and Kacen Brown<\/p>\n<p>    <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ktvu.com\/tag\/us\/ca\/central-valley\" class=\"tags-tag\" data-v-94395e58=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Central Valley<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ktvu.com\/tag\/heartwarming\" class=\"tags-tag\" data-v-94395e58=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Heartwarming News<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FRESNO, Calif. &#8211; Heroes come in all ages: this hero is a seventh grader from Fresno who stopped&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":345110,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[1184,512,112,114,113,8089,100,1181],"class_list":["post-345109","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fresno","tag-ca","tag-central-valley","tag-fresno","tag-fresno-headlines","tag-fresno-news","tag-heartwarming","tag-news","tag-us"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345109","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=345109"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345109\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/345110"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=345109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=345109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=345109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}