Dr. Henry Heimlich didn’t hesitate. When a fellow diner started choking, the 96-year-old was ready to perform the maneuver that he invented.

This all happened Monday at an assisted-living facility in Cincinnati, The Cincinnati Enquirer reports. Resident Patty Ris, 87, had swallowed a piece of meat and was struggling to breathe. Perry Gaines, an employee of the Deupree House — who had in fact performed the Heimlich maneuver before — ran toward her table. But Heimlich was already in position.

“Typically, a staff member would do it,” the Enquirer reports. ” ‘But,’ Gaines said, pausing, ‘it is Dr. Heimlich.’ ”

Heimlich successfully dislodged the meat from 87-year-old Ris’ airway.

“It was very gratifying,” he told The Guardian on Friday. “That moment was very important to me. I knew about all the lives my manoeuvre has saved over the years and I have demonstrated it so many times but here, for the first time, was someone sitting right next to me who was about to die.”

In a video given to the Enquirer, Ris said she wrote Heimlich a thank you note that read, “God put me in this seat next to you.”

NPR and others have reported that Monday’s incident was Heimlich’s first time actually performing the maneuver. But the BBC says that Heimlich told the broadcaster in 2003 that he had used the move before to help someone. Heimlich’s son Phil told The New York Times his dad hadn’t mentioned any such instances before this week.

Read More – Source: Dr. Heimlich Uses His Maneuver At Retirement Home, Saves 87-Year-Old Woman : The Two-Way : NPR