Kitchener waiter dubbed a ‘hero’ after saving the life of a 9-month-old

A nightmare turned reality for a Kitchener woman after her 9-month-old baby started choking in a local restaurant.

Karli Walters was out with a friend for lunch on Monday when she noticed her son had a funny look on his face.

She began giving her son Kyle back blows while her friend began screaming for help and asked someone to call 911.

“The next thing I know, our waiter was there and he took Kyle from me, and he started to give him back blows,” says Walters. “It felt like an eternity.”

“The food shot out of Kyle’s mouth and he started crying, which was the best noise you could ever hear.”

The heroic waiter? CPR certified Michael Hendrix, who says he’s humbled by the attention he’s received since the incident. “I’m a parent, I’m a father, and I get it. This is what we do.”

“When the initial first response wasn’t working I had no panic, I just took over, and relied back on my training,” said Hendrix, who works at the Kelsey’s on Ottawa part-time, and works with children with autism.

After the incident the restaurant wouldn’t let Walters pay for her meal, and called her the next day to make sure her son was okay.

Once she was able to absorb what happened, she wrote a long thank-you letter and dropped it off at the restaurant for Hendrix and sent a note to Spotted in K-W, a Facebook group where people can anonymously thank others in our community.

The post has been shared almost 300 times, and has over 1,800 ‘likes’.

Inspired by the post, others have started a petition asking the City of Kitchener to recognize Hendrix for his heroism.

The baby has since made a full recovery and both Walters and Hendrix are encouraging everyone to get CPR certified.

“You never think it’s going to happen to you,” says Walters. “Think twice about who’s out there. I didn’t think that a stranger was going to save my baby’s life so just treat everyone with kindness, because you never know what’s going to happen.”