Dinner the other night for my husband and me was out at a small restaurant we'd been told about, away from both towns and traffic. The menu was countrified but promising, and the smells from the kitchen were appetizing, so we settled into a booth and ordered sweet potato fries to start us off. An older gentleman had entered after us and took a booth at the other end of the dining room.

We munched the (tasty) fries, placed our dinner orders, sipped our iced teas (unsweet) and relaxed. Our main courses arrived, and we casually chatted as we ate.

Behind us, we had barely noticed the waiter talking to the older gentleman. We hadn't noticed at all when his meal arrived. What we did notice, however, at some point, was the waiter's voice raised with a concerned question: "Sir, are you all right?" Followed by, "Sir, can you talk, can you breathe?" Then "He can't breathe!"

I turned around half out of my seat, my husband half raised himself out of his. The young waiter was bending over, patting the older gentleman on the back, but the man was raising his hands up to his neck, his mouth open, no sound, his eyes huge, all of it happening in slow motion until the man started to slump over onto the table, at which point everything jumped into fast forward. "Help," yelped the waiter, "Help. He's choking."

My husband and I both jumped up, and as I was thinking "No, he's not choking, he's choked," I shouted "He needs the Heimlich maneuver." The two of us lunged over to the table where the man was slumped, and we could both see that his face was not a good color. He was fully unconscious, not moving. As we bent down to try to lift him up, he was dead weight. The waiter, panicked now, had never heard of a Heimlich maneuver. He shouted again for help and another waiter came over. "Get him up," my husband yelled to them, and it took all four of us to lift the man to his feet.

He was not a huge man, but big enough; the space was cramped, and it was hard to move. I ended up behind him, and I wrapped my arms around him and gripped my fists together and gave that hard jerk of pressure below his ribs into his diaphragm that you're supposed to do. Nothing. The skin on the man's face and neck was getting very dark, and it looked blue. "I'm not strong enough," I yelled, and instantly somehow my husband took my place.

My husband did the maneuver, his own face red with the strain of holding the man's weight. Drool came out of the man's slack mouth, but nothing else. He was not breathing. I had a flash glimpse of a waitress's wide-eyed face, heard her saying that she'd called paramedics but they were 10 minutes away. I knew the man didn't have 10 minutes. My husband did the maneuver again. The man gurgled. "Do it again!" I yelled, and he did. The man made a harsh, guttural cough and something wet flew out of his mouth and more something rolled down his shirt. He gasped, and his skin colored back to pink. Another gasp or two. His eyes opened. He lifted his head and then his feet staggered, finally holding his weight.

"There, are you there, can you breathe, can you talk, are you OK?" All of us were on him at once. One of us dragged a chair over for him. The waitress was talking into a phone, to the dispatcher for the paramedics. I hadn't even noticed she was holding a phone.

The man sat down. "I'm so sorry," he said over and over. "What happened, I don't know what happened. I'm so sorry."

I looked at his table. There was a thick, partially eaten, medium rare steak on a metal platter, with a steak knife. The fork was lying sideways on the table next to it and the water glass had spilled. The placemat had praying hands drawn on it and printed prayers.

We talked to the man until he seemed calm, and then eventually the paramedics came and took him outside and checked his ribs and pulse and blood pressure and did the things that paramedics do. One of the paramedics asked us to tell her what had happened. We told her.

"If he lost consciousness, you saved his life," she said quietly. "We wouldn't have been in time."

Here's what every waiter and all of us needed to know:

THE HEIMLICH MANEUVER FOR CHOKING:

A choking victim can't speak or breathe and needs your help immediately. Follow these steps to help a choking victim:

1. From behind, wrap your arms around the victim's waist.

2. Make a fist and place the thumb side of your fist against the victim's upper abdomen, below the ribcage and above the navel.

3. Grasp your fist with your other hand and press into their upper abdomen with a quick upward thrust. Do not squeeze the ribcage; confine the force of the thrust to your hands.

4. Repeat until object is expelled.

UNCONSCIOUS VICTIM, OR WHEN RESCUER CAN'T REACH AROUND VICTIM:

Place the victim on back. Facing the victim, kneel astride the victim's hips. With one of your hands on top of the other, place the heel of your bottom hand on the upper abdomen below the rib cage and above the navel. Use your body weight to press into the victim's upper abdomen with a quick upward thrust. Repeat until object is expelled. If the Victim has not recovered, proceed with CPR. The Victim should see a physician immediately after rescue.