MIDDLEBOROUGH, Mass. — He’s only 8-years-old and has already been through a lot.
Michael O’Brien, Jr. lost his father in a car crash a month ago, so when his mother was in trouble there was no way the Cub Scout was going to let anything happen to her.
Marie Hunt had just baked muffins and was trying one when she suddenly began to choke.
“I kind of panicked, I just didn’t really show it,” O’Brien said. “I’m like, trying to keep a non-scared face. I didn’t want her to panic more. That might affect it. I picked up the phone and dialed it, and then talked to the dispatcher until they got there.”
He said he was really scared during the incident and was trying not to scream.
“Easter weekend my dad crashed and passed,” he said. “It’s hard for me to keep myself calm. So when that happened, and my mom was choking, it was really hard. I wouldn’t know what do to if she, you know,” O’Brien said. “I wouldn’t know where to go. I wouldn’t know.”
That’s when his mother began to cry.
“I can’t lose her. I already lost my dad.”
Hunt said her son is off the hook for Mother's Day this year because saving her life was a pretty incredible gift.
"What were the instructions you gave me after I dropped you off at school?" she asked her son.
He replied, “’Don’t eat for the rest of the year!’”