It turns out that Spongebob Squarepants is more important than we thought. Brandon Williams, a 13-year-old Staten Island, New York student who is autistic, credited the Nickelodeon cartoon with helping him learn the Heimlich maneuver to save a classmate’s life.
According to the Staten Island Advance, Brandon saw that his classmate, Jessica Pellegrino, was choking on the skin of an apple at lunch on Oct. 28. He helped Jessica stand up, then put his arms around her. After a thrust to her diaphragm, Jessica spit out the piece of apple skin.
When his father asked where he learned the Heimlich maneuver, Brandon said, “Learned it on Spongebob.”
“He picks up on things that most of us would miss, and files it all away in his head, and he can recall it all in an instant,” his father, Anthony, told the Advance. “That's how he knew instantly what to do. And we're glad he did. We're proud of him.”
Jessica and Brandon’s class later held a party for them. Some members of the class wanted to give Brandon a medal, but he said he doesn’t want one.
Brandon didn’t say which Spongebob episode taught him the Heimlich, but it’s possible that it could be this segment below, where Patrick says he needs to use the “Slimelich” maneuver to help a choking victim.