Choking... and my lack of an appropriate response.

I've always told myself that in the case of a real, serious and life threatening experience I was sure I would automatically go into survival or life saver mode. I guess I assumed that it would just come to me.
I was wrong. I was absolutely, completely wrong.

Saturday night we went out to dinner. We ordered my son's absolute favorite appetizer of all time, deep fried cheese curds (really... they're good... I promise.)
Being 6 years old and having no concept of how many is too many to put in his mouth at one time, the unthinkable happened... he started to choke.
Now let me explain something. My son is overly dramatic. We've told him "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" story at least a million times to no avail. He tends to think it's funny to pretend he's injured, dying, in pain and sick on a pretty regular basis. So what was my initial reaction? "Oh brilliant... here he goes... putting on another show." Honestly, this actually crossed my mind. That is, until I noticed that he was becoming visibly red and the red was quickly turning the strangest shade of blue I'd ever seen.
Now the panic mode set in. He seemed to be gagging and now I don't have one clue what to do. I jump up and put a napkin in front of his mouth. An eff-ing napkin? But that was exactly it. The situation went to dire in what seemed like no time flat and my husband and I crouched around him both realizing uncomfortably quickly that neither of us had any clue how to actually administer the Heimlich maneuver.

It is an awful and unbelievable feeling to watch your only child turn blue. It is worse when you've worked in and around restaurants and bars for your entire life and have stared at the giant choking poster with specific instructions on how administer "said" maneuver for 15 plus years and clearly learned nothing from it.
Seriously... it didn't even occur to me to slap him on the back. I was helpless.
Thankfully humans are incredible and helpful beings and over comes a nurse (much like she had been sent from above... or from 2 tables over eating dinner.) I'm not even sure exactly how it all went from there on out. The evil cheese curd was coughed right out and into my sons hands. I just know that suddenly my son was breathing and color was quickly returning to his face. The relief that washed over me was indescribable. I could see it in my husbands face too.
And how did Michael react once he was breathing and able to talk?

He stuck that evil cheese curd right back in his mouth and ate it.

Crisis averted.