Mom says an ‘angel in a pickup’ stopped to save her choking boy along an Alabama road

An Alabama woman says “an angel in a pickup truck” pulled over to save her son as the boy was choking on the way home from church.

It happened in Gardendale, about 10 miles north of Birmingham, and Candace Pimentel says she never got the man’s name.

“Tonight, on our way home from a church activity, my sweet boy Raylen choked on a hard candy,” Pimentel wrote Dec. 1 on Facebook.

“Between pulling off the road, attempts to dislodge the object, yelling for my other son to call 911, flagging people down, my heart was breaking. Then Heavenly Father sent me an angel in a pickup truck. He helped save my baby.”

The man stopped to perform “the Heimlich maneuver properly and effectively” on her 9-year-old son. He then drove away.

Pimentel was in a state of panic at the time, but she remembers he said he was also coming from church. She recalls giving him a hug, too.

“Although I don’t know his name, I do feel like we had a proper thanking and embrace,” she told McClatchy News.

“If our paths cross in the future, I would hug him and thank him again. But if not, I will forever be grateful for that stranger and for Heavenly Father sending him. ... And yes, no more hard candy.”

This story was originally published December 9, 2021 at 6:30 AM with the headline "Mom says an ‘angel in a pickup’ stopped to save her choking boy along an Alabama road."