Pinellas Park Elementary school teacher Michelle Digman is being called a hero after a quick health lesson helped save 10-year-old Tashawn Roberts.
Roberts was looking for his pulse during a lesson last month on the circulatory system when he felt a lump in his neck.
"Tashawn [Roberts] comes up and says Ms. Digman I can't find my pulse,” said teacher Michelle Digman. “I said, ‘oh well let’s see if I can help you find it and he told me he felt something else. We checked his neck and there was a lump there.”
Digman told Tashawn it was important that his parents check out the lump when he got home and when he did they found the 10 year old had an aneurysm.
“It’s an amazing because we found it in time because they can rupture and they think that’s what it was trying to do,” said Teyosha Pippen. “So right away they went in and did the surgery."
Teyosha Pippen said the lump in her son's neck felt so small but the X-ray from All Children’s Hospital in St. Petersburg showed it was the size of a golf ball.
The 10 year old had to spend about a week in the hospital and has a few small scars from his surgery but he’s glad to be back in school and so is his family.
“Had it not been for her teaching them what she did, I wouldn’t have known my son had an aneurysm and God knows what would’ve happened,” said Pippen.
Tashawn’s teacher said it just happened to be the right lesson at the right time.
“We were meant to be here at Pinellas Park Elementary," said Digman.