A 9-year-old boy in North Carolina helped save his friend who started choking at recess. Jayceon Branch was playing basketball with his friend Donye when a surveillance video shows the younger boy starting to choke. Moore was eating a granola bar and began gasping for air when Branch stepped in to perform the Heimlich maneuver.
The outlet's surveillance footage shows the older boy reaching around the second grader’s body to perform two compressions, allowing him to expel the food and breathe properly.
“We were playing basketball and he ate a granola bar and we started playing longer until he started choking,” the 9-year-old told the outlet of the incident that occurred the week of March 3. “I didn’t know he was actually, actually choking, so I just did my thing, which was a Heimlich.”
The older boy revealed that he learned the life-saving maneuver from a YouTube video.
“I learned it from watching YouTube,” Branch told the outlet. He was inspired to learn after watching a teacher use the method to help another student who was choking.
Teachers and parents have applauded his heroic actions.
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