A concrete truck driver named Jeff Hanus was pouring concrete on the side of Interstate 55 in Chicago Saturday morning, when a car pulled up to and parked in front of his truck. A woman jumped out holding her throat. A truck-mounted camera captured the intense moment. Jeff got out of his truck and quickly performed the Heimlich maneuver. Two thrusts and an object flew out.
The woman thanked him and returned to her car. Jeff says that's when he saw she had a toddler in the backseat. "Then it hit me that if this would have went wrong, it could have went really, really wrong. What if she passed out, and the vehicle flipped?"
Hanus, learned the Heimlich maneuver after losing a friend to choking a few years ago. so he knew how serious the situation was. "I found out it's real easy to go from swallowing to it getting stuck to, to you're dead. If the people near my friend that day had taken a half hour at some point to learn the Heimlich he'd still be here. I wanted to make sure I was could help someone keep their friend if it happened near me."
The Army vet expressed gratitude and relief that the woman found him that day. "Her angels and my angels got together,” Hanus says, “And it worked out."