Toronto Blue Jays manager John Schneider saves woman from choking in restaurant

By Ben Morse, CNN

Toronto Blue Jays manager John Schneider saved a woman’s life after he saw her choking in a restaurant, the team announced on social media.

Schneider and his wife, Jess, were eating at a restaurant in Dunedin, Florida, the Blue Jays said, when he noticed a woman at a nearby table was choking on her food.

The 43-year-old went to her rescue and performed the Heimlich maneuver, a lifesaving response to choking which the 6-foot-3-inch Schneider said he had learned at school.

“I learned it in about sixth grade and hadn’t thought about it since,” Schneider said, per the MLB website. “So it was like: ‘I think I remember how to do this?’ I’m a bigger guy, so I think that helped a little bit. But no, I hadn’t thought about the Heimlich maneuver since grade six.”

With the woman safely able to breathe again, both parties returned to their meals, although Schneider admitted he was a “little bit rattled afterwards.”

According to the MLB website, Schneider’s reward for saving her life was a free beer which helped calm his nerves.

“It’s not like you’re looking for a pat on the back,” he said. “She said, ‘Thank you,’ and carried on with her meal with her friends. We kind of just said: ‘See you later.’ Again, I wasn’t looking for a big compliment. I think I was a little bit more rattled than she was.”

Speaking to the Athletic, Schneider’s wife described the calmness with which her husband reacted to the incident which, according to the Athletic, happened in downtown Dunedin about two weeks ago.

“He gracefully gets up, doesn’t panic,” she said. “The way he held his cool, you would have thought he was managing a wild-card game. It was so graceful.”

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