HARPER WOODS, Mich.
--
A firefighter on a cruise vacation jumped into action when he saw a toddler choking and is being credited for saving the little boy's life.
"If he hadn't done what he did, I wouldn't be holding him right now. I know that," said Alisha Marchand, whose 14-month-old son Ian, started choking while the family ate dinner at a restaurant in the Bahamas last month.
The Monroe family was on a Disney Cruise, the same one Harper Woods Fire Captain Charles Randles and his family happened to be on.
Alisha Marchand, a registered nurse, said she put her training to use but nothing was helping her son start breathing again.
"I was frantic, very frantic. I didn't know what to do anymore. I kind of, sort of, gave up," Alisha Marchand said.
Equally frustrated, Ian's father said he could only watch as his son started turning blue.
"I just couldn't believe that it wasn't coming up, whatever it was," said Josh Marchand.
Randles, sitting just a few tables over from the Marchands, noticed the emergency and took action.
"I grabbed Ian, looked at him, he was blue, then all I did was CPR. I turned him over and gave him four back blows," Randles said.
A shrimp shell popped out of Ian's throat and the toddler began to recover.
Alisha Marchand said he son must have grabbed it off a plate without anyone noticing.
"Off duty I don't come across too many emergencies. Like everybody else, you don't think it's going to happen to you. When I saw that happen it just made me feel pretty good," Randles said.
The family said they are very grateful Randles and his family coincidentally were on the same cruise and eating at the same restaurant at the right time.
"Because of Charles we got to take him sledding for the first time yesterday," Josh Marchand said. "If it weren't for him, we wouldn't have been able to do that."
Randles has been with the fire department for 18 years.
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