An Arkansas 12-year-old who saved his younger sister from choking earlier this month while his parents slept credits a children's television channel for teaching him the emergency medical maneuver.
About 10 p.m., Aug. 1, 9-year-old Caleigh Hunter and her big brother, Corey “C.J.” Hunter Jr., were in the kitchen of their Magnolia home when the candy she was chewing became wedged deep in her throat.
“She just started choking on it,” said C.J. “Then she just held up the candy bag and pointed [to her neck].”
When asked by her brother if she were choking, Caleigh, barely able to utter a word, kept motioning to her throat and squeaked out a faint “yes.”
“I told her to stand up,” C.J. said. “Then I just …”
The “just” C.J. spoke of was a perfectly performed Heimlich maneuver, or the motion of wrapping one’s arms around a choke victim’s lower abdomen and rapidly pulling one’s clasped hands into the body just below the ribs and sternum.
The motion worked.
“It just flew right out,” said C.J.
The young man has no formal emergency or CPR training and the mention of the word “Heimlich” drew only a blank look.
Instead, an unlikely source was the root of his learning the pressure procedure.
“I learned it on the Disney Channel,” said C.J.
C.J. and Caleigh were so tight-lipped about the event that no one in the family even knew of what took place until roughly 18 hours later. Only by a casual mention of the event to their grandparents, did the details come to light.
“It was the next afternoon before I even knew,” said Tomika Hunter, mother of C.J. and Caleigh.
C.J. later added that he was “a little nervous” during the ordeal.
The boy’s father, Corey Sr., was also amazed and thankful for the 12-year-old’s exposure to the compression maneuver.
“The fact that TV was responsible for educating them on something positive instead of something negative,” said Corey, “that’s a blessing.”