When news stories of everyday heroism pop up across the ever-connected world which we now live, the tales of selflessness and concern for another can inspire awe, astonishment and even magnify the fragility of human life and amplify the spirit which lives within it.
And often, the subjects of such coverage are everyday Americans, simply passing through an unlikely situation. What result comes in some form of bravery, alertness, care or common sense tactic applied during a few fleeting flashes of time.
The stories, of which there are numerous each year, typically involve a subject who truly earns his 15 minutes of fame.
Take the incident from 2008 of Sacramento, California, mail carrier Robert Sweeney whom, upon his final delivery, came across a flaming garage, a panicked mother, and her 19-month-old lifeless child.
The incident, caused by a burning clothes drier, filled the home and an infant child’s lungs with smoke. The postal worker, according to a local KRCA News report from the time, squelched the flames with a water hose, then went on to perform CPR on the child and resuscitating the unconscious baby well before paramedics could arrive.
Without the perfectly-timed situation and the proper person within ear’s reach, the outcome could have been far, far worse.
Sweeney would later appear on the Oprah Winfrey Show in 2009 and, just as most subjects in these stories, underplayed his own “heroism” and instead focused on the well being of another as it hung in the balance.
“He didn’t care about his life, he only wanted to save our lives,” said the child’s mother in a news 2009report.
The California incident is but one of countless involving a person composed and prepared for such an unexpected circumstance.
But what of someone with no formal training in the face of a potentially perilous situation? And what if that person were not an adult with years of life experience to aid them but just a child helping another child.
So is the case of Corey “C.J.” Hunter Jr. — a Magnolia 12-year-old who, with the help of a kid’s television channel known more for introducing the world to the likes of Miley Cyrus and Selena Gomez than emergency medical maneuvers, saved his younger sister from choking to death late one night, all while his parents slept.
On Wednesday, Aug. 1, at approximately 10 p.m., 9-year-old Caleigh Hunter and her big brother C.J. — named after his father, Corey Hunter — were in their family’s kitchen enjoying a typical summer, non-school night which contained watching iPad videos and eating candy while mom, dad, and their 3-year-old sister were tucked away in bed upstairs.
But when the soft, Lemon Head candy Caleigh was chewing became wedged deep in her throat, her pre-teen sibling took action.
“She just started choking on it,” said C.J. “Then she just held up the candy bag and pointed [to her neck].”
When asked by her brother if she were choking, Caleigh, barely able to utter a word, kept motioning to her throat and squeaked out a faint “yes.”
“I told her to stand up,” C.J. said. “Then I just…”
The “just” C.J. spoke of was a perfectly performed Heimlich Maneuver, or the motion of wrapping one’s arms around a choke victim’s lower abdomen and rapidly pulling one’s clasped hands into the body just below the ribs and sternum.
The motion worked. And Caleigh, in just one thrust from her older brother, saw the ball of candied confection catapult from deep within her esophagus and out of her mouth.
“It just flew right out,” said C.J.
The candy was so far down, it lay lodged, just inches above her collarbone area.
Caleigh, when asked what she was thinking during the ordeal, only let out a small gasp to portray her fearful mindset.
The abdominal compression, though, was not the completion of the incident. After the candy was boosted from Caleigh’s throat, she gasped for air in a small panic. But her brother then went a step further.
“She couldn’t breath,” C.J. said. “I just told her to raise her hands up.”
Not only did he raise her arms above her head to stretch out her air capacity, the 12-year-old breathed along with his sister, in a display of comfort and calm in a time of stress.
“I was nervous,” added Caleigh. “I didn’t think it was going to come up.”
Adding to the story, was C.J.’s introduction to his perfect life-saving tactic. The young man has no formal emergency or CPR training and the mention of the word “Heimlich” drew only a blank look.
Instead, an unlikely source was the root of his learning the pressure procedure. It didn’t come through a school presentation or a meeting with firemen or other emergency workers but through watching cable television.
“I learned it on the Disney Channel,” said C.J.
As if discovering the life-saving technique from a children’s TV station were not unique enough, the two involved in the incident, C.J. and Caleigh, were so tight-lipped about their Wednesday night, no one in the family even knew of what took place until roughly 18 hours later. Only by a casual mention of the event to their grandparents, did the details of the heroic act finally come to light.
“It was the next afternoon before I even knew,” said Tomika Hunter, mother of C.J. and Caleigh.
The children that Thursday had enjoyed a swim before visiting their maternal grandfather, Randy Reed, at his business in Magnolia, with Shirley Hunter, their maternal grandmother.
“It was a little after 4 o’clock and Caleigh was just sitting on my lap,” Reed explained. “She was just talking and said, ‘you know C.J. saved my life last night.’ I was thinking it had something to do with the swimming.”
When Reed asked his grandchildren for more details, they explained the Aug. 1 late night happenings. Reed, in a slight state of shock, went on to learn of Caleigh’s choking and C.J.’s quick action. He was also informed that their parents, Tomika and Corey, had yet to even hear of the incident.
“I said, ‘you’ve got to tell them,” Reed added.
It was not long before the kids’ parents were calling, asking for more details.
“We just didn’t have any idea,” said Tomika. “We were asleep when it all happened.”
Reed, also a local funeral parlor owner and coroner for Columbia County, made clear just how incredible C.J.’s deeds were and how dire the situation actually was for the 9-year-old Caleigh. Not only were the two rarely even in the same room together during that time of night but by simply reacting as fast as C.J. did and his not searching for help, probably saved Caleigh from disaster.
“Normally, he’s upstairs and she’s downstairs in her room,” said Reed. “If he had run and got [their parents], it would have been too late. If they had called me, it would have been too late. You just have to act quick; you have seconds.”
Adding to Reed’s amazement, was C.J.’s urgency and calmness in the face of chaos — a trait seemingly straight from the emergency response playbook.
“He just went into action,” Reed said. “Which is what [professionals] are trained to do. There are EMTs (Emergency Medical Technicians) that might not have been that smooth. How he didn’t panic, that’s what really got me.”
C.J. later added that he was “a little nervous” during the ordeal.
The boy’s father, Corey Sr., was also amazed and thankful for the 12-year-old’s unique exposure to the compression maneuver that ultimately saved his daughter’s life.
“The fact that TV was responsible for educating them on something positive instead of something negative,” said Corey, “that’s a blessing.”
As for the cause of the choking incident, the Hunter household will now be hard pressed to find any candy to become stuck where it should not.
“Everything has been thrown out,” said Tomika. “No more candy.”
Now, almost two weeks after the incident, family members are still in awe of C.J.s heroics and Caleigh’s well being. Some thanked God. Some were nearly at a loss for words, unable to describe their emotions when they realized just how disastrous the situation could have been had only one small movement or act gone differently.
But for the person whose life was saved, only two words were needed to show gratitude to her big brother, whose name now joins the list of everyday heroes.
“Thank you,” she said.