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South Carolina mailman delivers package, saves choking baby

Chris Brown, a USPS worker in Greer, South Carolina, saved a baby who was choking on his route.

A postal worker went above and beyond his job description last week, and became one South Carolina family's hero.

As Chris Brown – no, not that Chris Brown – was delivering packages on his route last Friday, a distraught mother ran outside with a choking 11-month-old boy in her arms.

Stephanie Cooper told WYFF that her son, Eli, starting choking after putting a plastic wrapper in his mouth.

She slapped him on the back, but nothing came out. She ran outside with Eli, hoping to find help.

She did.

The postal worker was right outside her door.

"The mailman didn’t even say a word," Cooper told WYFF. "He just grabbed my son and did the Heimlich on him and out it came."

"I didn't realize at the time it was a life and death situation," Brown, 48, later explained. "I was shocked when Mrs. Cooper ran out of the house with her son in her arms. I just knew the child wasn’t breathing and I had to get oxygen to his lungs."

"A calm just came over me and I just wanted to get this child breathing again. The child was so little, I worried about squeezing him too hard," Brown, who learned the Heimlich manoeuvre as part of his emergency training with the post office, told Greer Today. "When I heard the baby crying I knew he was going to be all right."

"It was so creepy. I am just so glad Chris was here," Cooper said. "I think it was 45 minutes to an hour, when Eli was in my arms, I just cried, and cried and cried. At that point Eli was just laughing and looking at me."

Thanks to Brown, Eli celebrated his first birthday over the weekend.

"It was no coincidence that Chris was here at that exact time," Cooper said. "He is an amazing man."

In his 24 years with the post office, this was the first time anything like this has happened, Brown told WYFF.

Eli's parents are calling Brown a hero, a title Brown dismisses. In fact, his superiors didn't even know about the incident until the following Monday.

"I really don’t feel that way, because to me I would have done it for anyone or I hope someone would have done it for my children," he said.

"I don't really feel like a hero. I look at policemen, military men, firefighters, nurses as heroes," Brown told Greenville Online. "It was just something I did."