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, waiting for his cousin to finish a tumbling class, the Journal-Courier reported. Tristen was eating, and between bites he went to play with the younger children while his grandmother went to buy milkshakes.

On the jumping toy, a six-year-old boy 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

Nobody had taught him. He likes to watch YouTube videos to learn how things are done, and he had watched one on helping someone who is choking.

The milkshakes

When Gansz came back and sat down, the other boy’s mother came over, told her that Tristen had saved her son, and walked him back to her.

“I was so surprised because Tristen is the least likely to interact with other children,” Gansz said. “I was so happy that he interacted like that and so proud he helped that kid.” She asked him how he had known what to do, and 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.’”

His mother

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

She does not think he understands how much he helped the other boy. “I don’t think he thinks he did anything special,” she said.