Picture this: a quiet morning in Vernon, Connecticut. Birds chirping. Trash trucks rumbling. And then—enter Doug Haiko, sanitation worker by trade, unexpected superhero by destiny.
While cruising along his route, Doug spots a car pulled over and a mom in full-on panic mode. Without hesitation, he pulls over like the action hero he didn’t know he was auditioning to be. She tells him her toddler is choking.
He starts delivering firm back blows, calling for backup on his radio. The child starts turning blue, tension rising… and then—pop! The blockage dislodges, and the little guy starts breathing again. Crisis averted.
Doug later says he wasn’t thinking much, just acting. And thanks to some old medical response training, he knew exactly what to do. By the end of the day, he learned the child was doing great, and the whole town had a new favorite local legend.