Alex Lesnik is just a regular guy – a 22 year old shift supervisor at Red Robin in Valparaiso, in fact. But he’s now also being called a local hero.
During a shift at the gourmet burger restaurant, one of the servers ran up toLesnik and told him a woman in the restaurant was choking. It was one of the busiest nights of the week – a Saturday – and the house was packed with happy families enjoying their meals. Lesnik dropped everything he was doing and sprang into action as quickly as he could, performing the Heimlich Maneuver and saving the woman’s life.
“We have headsets that we wear and while I was doing the Heimlich I yelled at the host to call all the other managers up here and let them know what exactly was happening. Once she did that, one of the managers got on the phone and dialed 911, and another came to check on the lady I was helping,” Lesnik said. “We didn’t end up needing the ambulance because the lady was fine right after. She just needed a few minutes to catch her breath.”
It all happened so quickly. But there was a restaurant to run.
“We were so busy. Immediately after that, I had to rush back to the kitchen to fill in and cook for two hours, so I didn’t really have time to process what had happened,” he said.
It didn’t hit him until later.
“I just couldn’t believe it happened. I was like ‘Oh wow, I can’t believe I did that.’ It was definitely an adrenaline rush,” he said.
Despite never having performed the maneuver, Lesnik said it was a natural instinct for him to jump in and help because he was drawing from education he’s already had, albeit nothing too formal.
“The only training I had was probably in 6th grade when they taught us the Heimlich and CPR in health class,” Lesnik said. “My girlfriend is also in nursing school and she has practiced the Heimlich on me before, but I have never performed it myself.”
Lesnik has humbly welcomed the unsolicited praise from managers, a supervisor, and other servers at Red Robin.
“I was not trying to seek out praise from anyone, it’s just what happens, happens,” he said.
Several regional operations directors for Red Robin have commented on Lesnik’s heroic act. They even displayed his recognitions on a bulletin board at the restaurant.
Lesnik believes that training in these life-saving techniques is important for restaurant staff.
“All managers should know how to do these things,” he said. “I think that would definitely help in these situations.”
The saying “not all heroes wear capes” definitely was true for Alex Lesnik on that busy night.