Roodhouse boy, 11, saves a choking six-year-old at a Jacksonville McDonald's

Tristen Ewbank and his grandmother, Connie Gansz, were at the McDonald’s in Jacksonville, Illinois, last week, killing time while his cousin finished a tumbling class. Tristen ate a bit, then went off to the play area while his grandmother went to buy milkshakes.

A six-year-old boy on the jumping toy started coughing.

I wondered if he was choking so I patted his back and a chicken nugget fell out. I just did it. I helped the kid.Tristen Ewbank, to the Journal-Courier

No one had taught him that. He likes watching YouTube videos about how to do things, and one of them was about helping someone who is choking.

Gansz came back with the milkshakes to find the other boy’s mother waiting for her. The woman said Tristen had saved her son, and walked him back over.

“I was so surprised because Tristen is the least likely to interact with other children,” Gansz told the Journal-Courier. “I was so happy that he interacted like that and so proud he helped that kid.” She asked him how he knew what to do. When he told her, she looked it up. “It said the first thing to do is bend them over and pat their back. I just sat there thinking, ‘He was right.’”

Tristen has autism and does not usually like being touched, or touching anyone else, his mother, Megan Ewbank, said. “So I was a little surprised when I heard about it, but so proud.” She tries to keep an ear on what he watches. “This makes YouTube a bit better.”

She does not think he understands what he did. “I don’t think he thinks he did anything special,” she said.