It was a scary moment for Pamela Wood.

She drove her son, Jared, home from soccer practice Sept. 9, as she often did. The Gettysburg Area Middle School student was in the middle of eating a hot sausage sandwich and, all of the sudden, he couldn't breathe.

He was choking.

Wood said at that moment, the adrenaline just took over.

She slammed on the brakes, stopping in traffic at the corner of North Washington Street and West Lincoln Avenue near the Gettysburg College campus, and dragged him out of the car.

Wood sprang into action. She began the Heimlich Maneuver, but it wasn't working.

It was the help of a stranger that likely saved her 13-year-old son's life, she said.

"It was very scary. The adrenaline kicks in, and you do what you have to do," she said. "It wasn't until long after the fact that I realized just how close of a brush he had."

She said she didn't know exactly how to do the Heimlich but continued to try. She worried her son would pass out and she knew she couldn't both hold him up and perform the maneuver.

She yelled for help.

Out of nowhere, Dominick Murphy showed up.

"He jumped right in and took over," Wood said.

Murphy, a Gettysburg College freshman from Union, N.J., was on his way home from the gym. He had an air of calmness that belied the terror he felt inside.

"I was pretty scared and nervous," he said.

There was no thought process about getting involved when he came to the scene, he said. It was just instinct when he heard her yell for help.

"No one there was taking action," he said. "The mother was obviously upset and distraught. I did what I could."

The freshman economics major said he had taken a CPR class the previous year in high school. This was the first time he'd had to use that knowledge in real life - and hopefully the last, he said.

Murphy calmly approached Jared and stood behind him. He told him in a calm voice that he was going to give him the Heimlich. Murphy put his fist into the boy's gut and squeezed with an upward motion.

He continued this for about a minute and a half. The piece of sausage finally came loose, and Jared swallowed it.

"It was scary," Jared said.

He said the feeling was hard to describe. He could hardly breathe, and he couldn't talk. He was panic stricken, he said.

The crowd dispersed, and the police and paramedics left when they determined Jared did not need to go to the hospital. He was just fine, except for a sore throat.

Murphy had just saved a life, Wood said, but he acted like it was no big deal.

"I found out later that no one on his dorm floor or in his building knew what he did. He didn't bother to tell anybody. He was so modest and humble," she said. "I don't know what I would have done without him. He was quite a godsend."

And, despite nearly choking to death, Jared finished his hot sausage sandwich.

THE HEIMLICH MANEUVER

Choking on a foreign object is one of the leading causes of accidental death.

The Heimlich Maneuver is perhaps the most recognized method of clearing an obstructed airway and saving someone from choking.

Here's how you do it, according to eHow.com:

1. Have the victim stand up. Position yourself so you are standing slightly behind the choker. Tell the victim what you're going to do.

2. Place your arms around the victim's waist.

3. Place your fist, with your thumb toward the victim, just above the victim's belly button.

4. Grab the fist with your other hand.

5. Make five upward thrusts into the abdomen.

6. Repeat this until the object is dislodged.