Hero 11-year-old on Oprah show

Schneider Metellus - meet Oprah Winfrey.
Schneider Metellus who?
He is the 11-year-old boy who, armed with some pre-nursing classes he received at his school, actually delivered his aunt’s baby on her bathroom floor.
Neither Metellus nor anyone in his family anticipated that the Holy Grail of all television talk shows would invite him to tell his story before a gigantic worldwide audience.
Nevertheless, Oprah’s producers did and on Friday, January 26, after boarding an airplane for the first time, Metellus, a slightly-built sixth-grade student enrolled at I.S. 109 in Queens Village, made his international television debut in Chicago on “The Oprah Winfrey Show.”
“It was great,” said Metellus about meeting Oprah. He wore a grin that proved the serious pre-nursing student had become infinitely more comfortable with the press than he was when he first became a local celebrity.
Featured on the front page of The Queens Courier and The Courier Sun newspapers, Metellus caught the interest of the talk show last December when the word quickly spread that he had rushed to his aunt’s aid as she began delivering his cousin, Isaac Metellus, in her bathroom.
His aunt, Mireille Metellus, had gone to the hospital just hours earlier believing that she was in labor, but went home after being told by staff there that the baby wouldn’t be born for few more days.
When his anxious uncle called Metellus’ mother for help, she made her way to the home with her son in tow.
“I first saw the baby was about to fall down,” Schneider said a few days after the big event, describing how he caught the newborn boy and was careful to protect the baby’s fragile head.
“I saw that the blood [on the baby] was red, so I knew there was good blood flow,” Metellus said. “And he was crying, so I knew his lungs were working fine.”
Metellus was featured on a segment called “Good News!” where his story was told with other inspirational tales including that of the successful separation of conjoined twins and a blind and wheelchair-bound young man who marches in his university band with his father’s assistance.
Backstage before the show there were grapes, doughnuts and soda to be eaten and makeup to be applied as Metellus waited to meet the world’s most influential woman, he said. Then the show’s minders briefed him on his cue and what to do once he got on stage.
“She said ‘Now I want to introduce Schneider Metellus,’ and I went in and people were clapping. I felt happy,” he said.
“There were a bunch of people and I was nervous until Oprah held me and started asking me questions,” he said, describing how Winfrey placed her arm around his shoulder and put him at ease.
Oprah asked the aspiring doctor how he knew what to do to deliver the baby.
“I told her I learned half from my pre-nursing class and half was instinct.”
Metellus is one of about 300 sixth, seventh and eighth graders studying pre-nursing at I.S. 109, where the program is now in its fourth year. The program is a modified version of the New York State high school Licensed Practical Nursing (LPN) curriculum in which successful completion of the program leads to a state LPN license.
The high school curriculum has been modified for the younger students, in part because I.S. 109 does not have laboratory facilities, said one of the program’s two teachers, registered nurse Samuel W. Green Jr. Nevertheless, because the students use a college-level textbook, they are required to have high reading and math skills before entering the program.
Then Oprah asked him how he stayed calm.
“My pre-nursing teacher told us about adventures in the emergency room and said people always must remain calm in an emergency,” he recalled saying.
However, back in Queens Village after being in the media spotlight and having his story told to millions of people Metellus isn’t quite ready to trade in his real life for the red carpet just yet.
Asked what is next for him he said, “I’m going to study and try to get to seventh grade.”