Turns out watching television is not necessarily a bad thing after all. Entertainment can be educational, even if it comes in cartoon form!
Choir students in a Long Island middle school were enjoying a joke in class earlier this week when one of the girls, Allyson Golden, inhaled her chewing gum and started choking. She couldn’t breath and thought she was going to die.
Fortunately for Golden, her friend, 12-year-old Miriam Starobin, had watched an episode of SpongeBob SquarePants in which she recalls a move similar to the Heimlich maneuver being performed.
“It didn’t exactly show the Heimlich maneuver, per se, but SpongeBob kicked Squidward in the stomach the same way you would put pressure with your hands,” Allyson said in the Christian Science Monitor.
Apparently, the character Squidward had been choking on his clarinet and had to be rescued by SpongeBob. Clearly the cartoon situation was over-the-top, but we didn’t say it had to be reasonable. The bottom line is that Starobin remembered how a talking sponge saved the life of his tentacled pal, and she did the same for hers.
“We think it’s smart thinking on Miriam’s part, and we are happy that SpongeBob could be such a positive help,” a Nickelodeon spokeswoman told Newsday.
No matter where the inspiration came from, thankfully Starobin did not hesitate when it came down to helping her friend. A situation like that might cause any other seventh grader to freeze, but this brave girl excelled under pressure.
As for that no gum rule observed in most schools, the Daily News claims that Golden has learned her lesson and won’t be chewing gum in class again.
Photo courtesy of AP Photo/Nickelodeon.