Firefighter Groom Saves Choking Woman at Wedding Reception

Video from the dinner shows the couple seated at the head table during the reception before the groom jumps into action

A Los Angeles County firefighter interrupted his own wedding reception to save a guest who was choking on a piece of food.

Firefighter Cody Campbell married Kelly Yocca Saturday at Dove Canyon Golf Club in Rancho Santa Margarita. During a toast by the groom's father, a retired Orange County Fire Authority captain, a guest in her early 60s began choking.

Video from the dinner shows the couple seated at the head table before Campbell sprints into action. Campbell, 30, responded by administering the Heimlich maneuver to clear the woman's air passage.

"I knew when she started to slump, it was an immediate situation," said Campbell's mother, Doreen Campbell. "Within a nanosecond, Cody was up and doing the Heimlich maneuver."

Campbell, became a firefighter about one year ago, moved a chair out of the way to aid the woman. The woman was identified as a relative of Campbell's father-in-law.

"At your own wedding, to save someone from your wife's family is unbelievable," said father Craig  Campbell.

The woman's eyes had rolled back in her head and her lips displayed signs of cyanosis, a blue discoloration of the skin that indicates poor circulation.

He administered about five chest compressions and the piece of steak eventually popped from the woman's mouth.

"Once the steak was out, I turned around and 200 people were staring back at me," Campbell told The Orange County Register.

The woman told Campbell he saved her life, according to other guests. She asked how he could thank him -- the firefighter said it's "just what we do."

"I'm proud of him every day, every single day for what he does," said Kelly Campbell. "

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