(NEW YORK) — Reality TV star Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino and his wife, Lauren Sorrentino, jumped into action recently when their son started choking.
The Sorrentinos shared video footage of the incident on Instagram Sunday as a warning to other parents.
Mike Sorrentino said the scary moment started as a typical, everyday dinner for his family last Thursday, but he grew alert when he heard his 2-year-old son, Romeo, starting to make choking noises.
“If I hear a cough during dinner, I assume it’s a problem. So I immediately jumped up,” the “Jersey Shore” alum recalled to “Good Morning America.”
Sorrentino said he picked up Romeo and started patting him on the back while his wife walked to the kitchen to retrieve an anti-choking device they kept in a drawer.
“I knew I didn’t want to hit him too hard when he was upright because I thought maybe that could maybe lodge the food even further,” the father of two said. “So that’s why I had got him upright and ready for when my wife had gotten the anti-choking device.”
In the video clip, taken by a security camera, Lauren Sorrentino is then seen using the anti-choking device on their son successfully.
Sorrentino told “GMA” that he’s still processing what happened, and called the incident “the scariest moment” of both his life and his wife’s.
“To be honest with you, I’ve tingles right now talking about it because everything was kind of textbook and we didn’t even know it,” he said.
Today, Sorrentino said Romeo is doing “amazing.”
“It was definitely a very, very scary close call for sure,” Sorrentino said. “We worked in synergy as a team and I couldn’t be prouder of my wife. I’m gonna break down. But she’s a superhero.”
Experts say when a baby is choking, you should place them belly-down over your forearm or thigh, supporting their head with one hand and delivering sharp blows to their back between their shoulder blades with the other, according to the National Institutes of Health. For an older child, you should give them an abdominal thrust or use the Heimlich maneuver, placing a fist above the belly button and then thrusting it inward and upward in a J shape.
“Crying after an event like this is a really good sign,” Dr. Jade Cobern, a board-certified pediatrician, said of the child’s reaction. “But it doesn’t mean you’re out of the clear. Getting an exam by a medical provider is really important after an episode like this so they can really listen to all the parts of the lungs, examine the child and be confident that they’re good to go.”
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