A pair of sixth graders from Texas have formed a special friendship after one saved the other from choking. When Arad Arbasi saw his fellow Robinson Middle School classmate James Dawson choking on a piece of plastic during their lunch break, the Plano 11-year-old leapt into action. "He has his face completely purple. And he's doing this," Arad explains while grabbing his throat with both hands. "So I run behind him and I start doing the Heimlich maneuver, and eventually I hear him yell, 'It's out! It's out!'"
Arad says he learned the Heimlich maneuver from a book when he was younger, and recently saw a video that refreshed his memory on the procedure. This was news to Arad’s father Kiumar Arbasi. "I found out he knew Heimlich and that was very surprising," Kiumar says. He only became aware of his son’s heroic actions after Dawson’s mother, Frances Salinas, posted on social media looking to thank the young man who saved her son’s life. "If your son goes to Robinson, is in 6th grade, and his name starts with an 'A'. He is a hero. Your son saved my son's life today," Salinas wrote on the Plano Moms Talk Facebook page. Pretty soon Salinas got a response from Arad’s mom, Mahnoosh Amami.
The two families got together after the moms connected online and the parents even went out to dinner together. And now not only are the boys better friends, the parents have become friends, too. "The whole choking situation, you know, made our friendship quite better," Arad says.
Source: People