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RYAN DRAYBUCK
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Re: Childhood Stories

I was on the couch jumping around watching Spongebob when I saw my mom give my older sister a hard candy. I couldn't have been more than five-years-old. Obviously, I asked where my hard candy was. My sister warned my mom not to give it to me because she insisted I was gonna choke on it.

After lots of begging and arguing I got my hard candy. With it in my mouth, I continued jumping around, off and on the couch while everyone went back to doing their own thing. Soon enough, I was red in the face and unable to breathe because I had gotten the hard candy stuck in my throat.

My mom called the ambulance (I guess nobody knew about the Heimlich maneuver) and my sister went running around the house wailing about how I was going to die. When the paramedics arrived they simply poured some hot water down my throat and melted the candy.

They said the only reason I had not choked to death was because I choked on a Lifesaver with a tiny hole in the middle of it (is that the point?) I have such vivid memories of this story because I have had to listen to it being recounted by my sister at least a hundred times over the years. Older siblings do love to be right after all.