The teacher didn't cause the student to choke because cellular telephones aren't allowed on campus. At the same time, the kid should have been more forceful and just yelled, "Mrs. Jones, I'm calling 9-1-1 because that guy is choking over there. Please give him the Heimlich Maneuver while I call."
~ Blue Jays ~
I think that teacher needs some serious going-over. Nothing more than an irresponsible bureaucrat who prizes rules over lives.
if that's how you would prefer the situation be handled if your child was choking, no problem. but if it were my child i'd want the kid to backhand the teacher and go back to the conversation.
Unfortunately it's easy for us adults to realize we need to be assertive when we're in that kind of situation. (Actually, I'm sure the poor kid is doing just what you said he should have done, over & over - in his mind.)
If a teacher prevented life saving treatment in order to enforce a rule about cell phone use, she most definently did kill the kid and should be prosecuted.
The teacher also didn't prevent 911 from being called. Note that the story says they got multiple calls. This reads like a novice flack's effort to create a story out of a non-story. Probably the work of someone who graduated from the "where's FEMA" school of journalism.