An Indiana pancake house waitress sprung into action Monday to save a young boy from choking — marking the second time she saved a customer’s life.
Beth Tibbles was serving another table at the Original Pancake House in South Bend when she heard the boy struggling and rushed to his aid.
Others in the restaurant appeared to be in shock, but Tibble was performing the Heimlich maneuver before anyone else fully realized what was happening.
“It’s just instinct, you know like someone else said, it’s survival. When someone’s in trouble you have to help them. That’s what people are supposed to do,” Tibbles told WSBT.
“There’s enough evil in this world. You know, you got to be nice. It takes one second to be kind.”
The waitress, who has served at the popular pancake house for a decade, even beat a law enforcement employee who was dining nearby.
After saving the boy, Tibbles nonchalantly picked up her coffee pot and continued serving her customers, according to bystanders.
“The coolest part of the whole thing and even though it was a scary situation was after she made sure the kid was OK, she just picked up the coffee pot and made her rounds,” diner Ashley O’Chap said.
“My husband and I said, ‘Did you just save someone’s life?’ And she was like, ‘Yeah,’ and ‘it was just another day for her.’”
Perhaps the heroic action wasn’t as anxiety-inducing for Tibbles because she already had experience saving a customer’s life.
She performed the Heimlich for the first time while she was working as a waitress in upstate New York more than 10 years ago.
The boy’s father joked that Tibbles — a waitress of more than 20 years — has enough experience to add EMT to her resume.
“It’s really important to keep that stuff up-to-date because you never know, sometimes if an emergency strikes and they would’ve had had a call 911. It could’ve taken a few minutes for police and fire and medics to get there, so the fact that she was able to act and respond as quickly and calmly as she did was huge,” O’Chap said.
Tibbles could not be immediately reached for comment.
South Bend is an Indiana city near the Michigan border and located a few miles from Notre Dame University.
