Boy learns Heimlich from TV, saves choking sister

MAGNOLIA — A 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.

Caleigh Hunter, 9, and her brother Corey “C.J.” Hunter Jr. were in the kitchen of their Magnolia home about 10 p.m. Aug. 1 when a piece of candy she was chewing became

wedged deep in her throat.

“She just started choking on it,” C.J. said. “Then she just held up the candy bag and pointed [to her neck].”

When asked by C.J. if she were choking, Caleigh kept motioning to her throat and squeaked out a faint “yes.”

C.J. immediately told his sister to stand up and then performed the Heimlich maneuver, the motion of wrapping one’s arms around a choking victim’s lower abdomen

and rapidly pulling one’s clasped hands into the body just below the ribs and sternum.

The maneuver worked. “It just flew right out,” C.J. said.

C.J. has no formal emergency or CPR training, and the mention of the word “Heimlich” drew only a blank look.

“I learned it on the Disney Channel,” he said.

C.J. and Caleigh were so tight-lipped about the scare that no one in the family knew what took place until roughly 18

hours later, when the children casually mentioned the event to their grandparents.

“It was the next afternoon before I even knew,” said Tomika Hunter, the children’s mother.

The boy’s father, Corey Sr., was 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, that’s a blessing,” he said.