Gov. Chris Sununu (R-N.H.) saved a man from choking during a lobster roll eating contest on Sunday. The Republican governor quickly performed the Heimlich maneuver after noticing that the man needed help.
According to WMUR-TV, Sununu was watching the Hampton Beach Lobster Roll Eating Competition in Hampton, New Hampshire, when one of the contestants started to choke as he was eating multiple lobster rolls.
Sununu told WMUR-TV, “The gentleman at the far end, who I was kind of watching — I glanced over, I could tell very quickly, he took, took a pause — he was having trouble getting something down.”
According to WMUR-TV, after starting to choke, the contestant, identified as Christian Moreno, attempted to signal that he needed help by tapping on his chest. Sununu told the outlet, “I started saying, ‘He’s choking, he’s choking,’ and I could tell people weren’t responding. So I just moved forward and immediately started to kind of give him the Heimlich.”
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WMUR-TV reported that in the middle of the commotion, the Republican governor jumped into action and gave Moreno four or five compressions before first responders came and helped dislodge the piece of lobster stuck in Moreno’s throat.
A video shared on X, formerly Twitter, shows the governor providing aid to the contestant.
Describing the incident to WMUR-TV, Sununu said, “It was crazy because it wasn’t so much the jumping in and doing it — I mean, that was wild in itself — but there was so much commotion,” Sununu said.
The Republican governor marveled that Moreno went “right back to the contest” and “ate another seven lobster rolls” right after his throat and windpipe were clear.
Moreno told WMUR-TV that Sunday’s lobster roll eating competition was his first time participating in an eating competition. Describing his frame of mind when he started choking on the lobster roll, Moreno said, “[I] was just kind of like, ‘All right, like, don’t freak out. You’re gonna, like, you’re gonna get this out, and you’re gonna keep going.'”
Moreno also told WMUR-TV how he discovered that the man who performed the Heimlich on him was the governor. He said, “My counter came up to me and, like, made a joke. And was like, ‘Oh, like, I bet nobody else can say that they’ve gotten the Heimlich from the governor before.’ And I looked at him, was just like, that was, that was the governor?”
According to WMUR-TV, despite choking during Sunday’s lobster roll eating contest, Moreno indicated that he plans on returning to the competition next year for “redemption.”
A picture of Sununu and Moreno was shared on social media following Sunday’s incident.
