- A teen
McDonald's drive-thru worker saved a woman from choking. - The 15-year-old reportedly helped to dislodge a chicken nugget caught in a customer's throat.
A McDonald's worker was hailed a hero by police after she dived through a drive-thru window to rescue a customer who was choking on a chicken nugget, according to a CNN report.
15-year-old Sydney Raley was working the Saturday shift at a McDonald's restaurant in Eden Prairie, Minnesota when the incident occurred.
"The day had been mostly normal – making coffee, making drinks. Going into the lunch rush, it was all normal," she told CNN.
But after handing the customer her order, Raley noticed that the woman was coughing and gagging.
"Her daughter was in the passenger seat and she looked so freaked out. I immediately knew, 'Oh, no, she's choking,'" she said. Raley told her manager to call 911 and then jumped through the window to help the woman dislodge the nugget from her throat.
Two local police officers, who came to the scene after, described Raley as a hero and rewarded her with $100, she said. The owner of the McDonald's restaurant told CNN that he was "incredibly lucky to have her as a highly-valued crew member."
A spokesperson for McDonald's did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.
McDonald's is among the major fast-food chains that have become more reliant on teen workers to fill vacancies in the labor crunch. According to CNN, Raley has worked at this restaurant for seven months.
While younger workers are entitled to be paid the same minimum wage as others, they can be paid as little as $4.25 an hour for up to 90 days of training, Insider's Mary Meisenzahl recently reported.