Off-duty firefighter saves choking restaurant patron

For one Leicester firefighter, a rescue is all part of a day's work, but this particular rescue happened at his second job where he works as a cook.

Johnny True was working his second job as a line cook when someone in the restaurant started choking. Within seconds, he was out from the kitchen, doing the Heimlich maneuver and seven or eight pulls after, the woman was fine.

"It's all in a days work for me. It's just what I do," said True.

True walked off like nothing happened.

"He just came back, washed his hands, jumped on the line again."

But had his training and opportunity not collided in that very moment, the woman might not be alive.

Another patron was trying - unsuccessfully - to help her, when a waitress shouted for help and Johnny answered the calls.

"He didn’t look like he knew what I was doing so I approached him hastily, said hey I'm John True, I'm a Leicester firefighter how can I help and he said oh get in here," said True.

Restaurant managers wrote about the incident on Facebook and the congratulations started pouring in, also from his dad, a Leicester firefighter for 27 years.

He says he's thankful he could help, but folks around town are thankful for much more than that - a woman's life saved.

"It was a pretty extraordinary event, not to Johnny, but to the rest of us it was."

True said he got trained on the Heimlich eight or nine years ago at the behest of his mother, who he didn't want to argue with.

Cox Media Group