PITTSBURGH (KDKA) — An 8-year-old girl has died after choking in school earlier this week.

Aizeya Mattocks, a third-grader, died around 6 p.m. Wednesday at Children’s Hospital.

She never regained consciousness.

“She’d been without oxygen which we knew for a long period of time – that she would have never probably been our little angel if she had lived,” Patty Foster, Aizeya’s great grandmother, said.

Aizeya choked while eating a hot dog during lunch at Mercer Area Elementary School on Monday as she was laughing and talking with friends.

“I guess the children say she got up and started moving towards one of the monitors,” Mercer Area School District Superintendent Dr. William Gathers said.

The cafeteria workers, all trained in CPR, did their best.

“And began to do the Heimlich and CPR,” Gathers said. “And the nurse is right down the hallway, came immediately and called 911.”

She was rushed to Children’s Hospital.

“The care that she was given, the ongoing affection and compassion,” Foster said.

Grief counselors are available at the school for students and adults. A Facebook page has been set up and the entire community is grieving.

“She always seemed to be very happy,” Foster continued. “I mean, she was a bubbly kind of child.”

Aizeya was the only child to a single mother, Amber.

“All we can figure out is God really needed an angel and he sure got one with Aizeya,” Foster said.

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