A rookie firefighter’s date night dinner with his pregnant wife turned into a chance to save a life when a man started choking at a table in front of him.
Stephen Cresci, 33, was having dinner at Da Noi, a popular Italian restaurant on Staten Island, on Friday night — “one last hurrah before the baby” — he explained Monday. His wife, Jennifer, is due Feb. 27.
The couple finished their dinners and were about to start in on dessert, two tortonis, when Cresci said he heard someone in distress.
Neighboring diner Juan Camacho was choking on a piece of lamb.
“I just knew this guy was choking,” the Engine 163 firefighter said. He tried to talk to the man, who turned red and started wheezing.
So Cresci jumped into action, performed the Heimlich maneuver, and with one thrust under his rib cage, dislodged a chunk of meat.