a casual dinner out turns terrifying when this college student bites off more than he can chew. all of a sudden, you re not breathing, and you only have a matter of a minute or two to get that food out of your throat or you re done. but help is on the menu, thanks to a hero waiter. i didn t know how many thrusts it would take. once i got around him, he was a lot bigger guy than i was. it was the scariest moment of my life definitely. march 2nd, 2011, atlanta, georgia. it s early wednesday evening at verde taqueria. a popular mexican restaurant in brookhaven. a busy night. very hectic, a lot of people. i had a number of tables in a row. the waiter matt mcconnell, a graduate student at nearby georgia state university has his hands full. i was kind of in a busy state of mind trying to ring in their
his feet. he lifted me a good foot and a half off the ground. matt gives several hard thrusts. and then it pretty much flew right out of my mouth. matt s heimlich works, propelling the piece of food from paul s windpipe. i took a huge breath of air. i was really starved for some oxygen. that first breath was the biggest sigh of relief i ve ever had in my whole life. i looked on the chair and saw i mean, it was a good size piece of steak and cheese. i grabbed a napkin real quick and scooped that up. i think he had seen enough of the black and bleu quesadilla for one night. paul is visibly shaken and slowly makes his way back to his table. i couldn t thank him enough. he had just saved my life. matt, ever the professional, jumps right back into waiter mode. i made sure my other tables were doing okay. like nothing had happened. and yes, paul does finish the
dish that nearly finished him. that black and bleu quesadilla. i was very cautious the rest of the night when chewing my food. the next day, verde tacoria posts at what he sees. i didn t realize how close i was to dying. it really only felt like maybe 15 to 20 seconds. after i watched the video, it went on for about a full minute. i didn t realize it had gone on that long. matt becomes a local hero, albeit a reluctant one. anybody should step in and help. that s part of what we should do being citizens in a community. i don t think that necessarily makes you a hero in any type of way. what s up, man? good to see you. good to see you. paul begs to differ. really the only reason i m still here is because he took
with the getaway car. right, exactly. remember, joyce didn t pick them up, i think, because go back to matt lauer s interview with the husband of joyce mitchell, which is key, and he says joyce told me that matt threatened her. that if she didn t help them and go through with it, he threatened her and threatened to kill me and her. and i think that is the thing that turned her away. she s scared she was so scared of matt that it turned her away. so his own viciousness and his own inability to turn off the viciousness really was his undoing. it made his escape and sweat s escape no good. so in the end, just two losers, and like john said, a great job by law enforcement and the commanders who made the right decisions by keeping the saturation up there, kept those troopers on the road, the sergeant shot him, you know, the citizens helped them. the governor stayed on it. you know, really, really great work. and as far as we know, nobody
a casual dinner out turns terrifying when this college student bites off more than he can chew. all of a sudden you re not breathing, and you only have a matter of a minute or two to get that food out of your throat, or you re done. but help is on the menu. thanks to a hero waiter. i didn t know how many thrusts it would take because once i got around him, he was a lot bigger guy than i was. it was the scariest moment of my life, definitely. march 2nd, 2011, atlanta, georgia. it s early wednesday evening at verde tacoria. it was a very busy fight, very hectic, a lot of people. i had gotten a number of tables sat in a row. waiter matt mcconnell, a graduate student at nearby georgia state university, has his hands full. i was kind of in a busy state of mind, trying to ring in their