MONROE, Mich. (WXYZ) — Security cameras at Dirty Birdie captured a boy inside the Mall of Monroe struggling to breathe with his hands around his neck. Several people and kids nearby were closely following and trying to help.
Devon Forrest, a bartender and manager at Dirty Birdie, said he initially misread the situation.
Watch Tony Geftos' video report below:
"Yeah, I saw him crying, and I saw the other ones. They didn't seem too serious at the time, so I kind of thought they were teasing him and messing with him until I then saw the other one lift him up and then flip him over the chair," Forrest said.
Shortly after 4 p.m. on Saturday, July 18, Forrest looked through the bar's windows and spotted the boy in distress. Video shows Forrest stopped what he was doing and immediately stepped out to help.
"So then I took him over to the trash can, picked him up and started hitting him again on the back, told him to cough, couple more pats in, here comes a peppermint and he threw up and everything was OK," Forrest said.
Tim Clark, the owner of Dirty Birdie, said he started paying to have his staff of seven trained for emergencies just last month. Forrest received his CPR certification mere weeks before he had to use it.
"Like I said, we got lucky. We did some training a month ago for this very same thing… I wanted to just in case something like that happened inside here or even out there," Clark said.
Watch surveillance video of the incident below:
Clark later reviewed the interaction on his surveillance video and was struck by Forrest's collected demeanor.
"I couldn't believe how calm he was. Just walked right over there and picked him up and just kind of patted him," Clark said.
Forrest credited that calm to a lesson learned as a father.
"Better to stay calm in those situations than to overreact," Forrest said. "I have a daughter and so I ended up having to do the same thing for her a long time ago. She's 3 now, but when she was young, we had an incident of her choking, too."
The 27-year-old from Monroe said he takes those life lessons to work with him every day in case something like this ever happens again.
Clark said he has not heard from the family of the boy, but he would love to reconnect after the incident.
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