But today, while I’m sitting in a booth in a small diner, now quiet after the early morning rush, I see the elderly woman at the table across from mine gasping for air. At first, she’s coughing. Then the coughs stop and she grows silent. She clutches at her throat, the same way the woman does in the poster you always see about what to do when someone is choking.
I look around wildly, hoping to spot somebody who knows what to do. My stomach sinks—I’m almost alone in the diner. There’s just one man in a business suit and he’s all the way in the back, looking down at his phone. The waitress is nowhere in sight.
If I don’t help this woman now, it will be too late. She will die.
I learned the Heimlich maneuver back in summer camp when I was thirteen. Kevin Malone practiced it on me, and I was so excited that Kevin was touching me, it was hard to focus on what I was learning. But it’s not exactly rocket science. You wrap your arms around the choking victim, make a fist below the breastbone, then thrust. Hard.
I push my cup of coffee away and leap to my feet. The woman is tiny and probably weighs eighty pounds dripping wet. I easily haul her out of her seat and wrap my arms around her frail chest. Then I thrust upwards. Once. Twice. Three times.
It’s not nearly as fun as when I was practicing with Kevin Malone.
Just when I’m scared it’s not working, a hunk of sausage flies out of the woman’s mouth. It lands on the table with a plunk, right next to her plate of eggs.
I saved her life. For the first time in my life, I’m a hero.
“What in God’s name is wrong with you? Are you crazy?”
I had thought the old woman would be tearfully thanking me right now. Thank you so much for saving my life. How can I ever repay you? But instead, she is somewhat less than grateful. Actually, that’s an understatement. She’s glaring at me with venom in her watery blue eyes, her jowls trembling with fury.
“You tried to attack me!” the woman yells as she steadies herself against the table. And then she picks up her half-full cup of coffee and throws the contents in my direction. Fortunately, the coffee has been sitting there for a while and is no longer hot. Less fortunately, the coffee is still wet. I’m drenched.
“You were choking,” I sputter.
The woman snorts like she’s never heard something so ridiculous in her entire life. “I was fine. Just a little water down the wrong pipe! You attacked me. I was minding my own business and you grabbed me!”
The middle-aged waitress finally emerges from the kitchen. She comes right over to us, making no effort to disguise the exhaustion in her bloodshot brown eyes. The waitress appears to be at the tail end of a busy shift and looks like she’d rather be just about anywhere than here, dealing with this. She wipes her hands on her blue jeans. “Is there a problem?” she asks in a raspy voice.
“Yes!” The old woman picks up her overstuffed pink purse and clutches it to her chest. “This young woman just attacked me and tried to steal my purse.”
Steal her purse? She can’t be serious! “I didn’t—”
“I think she broke my rib.” The woman moans as she clutches her side. “I need you to call the police.”
The police? Oh God, this can’t be happening…
“She was choking…” I say weakly.
The old woman glares at me. “Tell the police I want to press charges,” she hisses. “I’m going to make sure you go to jail for a long time.”
Now I feel like I’m choking. She’s not really going to press charges after I just saved her life, is she? And I can’t afford to pay for a lawyer. My bank account is mostly cobwebs at this point.
Someone clears their throat behind me. I jerk my head around, and it’s the man in the business suit who had been sitting at the other end of the diner. He’s gotten up from his seat and is standing behind me.
“Excuse me,” he says. “I saw the whole thing.”
The old woman’s eyes light up. “I have a witness then! You saw this horrible girl attack me!”
“You were choking!” I cry, for what feels like the hundredth time.
She clutches her chest and groans. “I think I have a punctured lung! We should probably call an ambulance.”
I let out an involuntary gasp. “An ambulance?”
“You’re my witness,” the old woman says to the man. “You saw how she attacked me, didn’t you?”
He glances at me with a raised eyebrow, and I just shake my head. “No, I saw how she saved your life,” he says. “You were choking. You would have died.”