Chicago Bears' Jerrell Freeman Saves Man Choking On Airport Brisket

AUSTIN, TEXAS — No matter how the Chicago Bears perform this season, linebacker Jerrell Freeman already will have made the best play of the year — and probably of his career — without even suiting up or setting foot on an NFL field. In fact, Freeman has a delayed flight and a lack of dietary discipline to thank for putting him in the right place at the right time to save the life of a stranger over the weekend.

The Bears defensive player told the Chicago Tribune's Dan Wiederer that he was indulging in his love of chopped brisket — a food he admits he should've been avoiding — while he waited for his plane back to training camp Sunday afternoon from Austin-Bergstrom International Airport in Texas. That's when fellow traveler and brisket buff Marcus Ryan began choking on his own barbecue meal at a nearby table. (Get Patch real-time email alerts for the latest news for Chicago — or your neighborhood. And iPhone users: Check out Patch's new app.)

An older woman tried to help Ryan, but her attempts at the Heimlich maneuver were unsuccessful, Wiederer reports. Freeman then sprung into action like he was on the gridiron, and he could see a lane open up to the quarterback.

Initially, the 6-foot, 236-pound linebacker couldn't dislodge the brisket from Ryan's throat either, despite trying "to squeeze the life out of him," he said. Freeman finally was successful after he remembered what his mom, a nurse, said about the Heimlich maneuver, he told Wiederer:

“You’ve got to push in and up. So I did that, and he started throwing up what he was choking on. I asked him if he was all right, and he shook his head like ‘No!’ …

“I grabbed him again and hit him again with it. And when I put him down the second time, his eyes got big. He was like, ‘Oh, my god! I think you just saved my life, man!' It was crazy.”

Some people, though, might think it was crazy for Ryan, who was sore in the ribs from Freeman's Heimlich, to tuck right back into his brisket after the meaty meal had it out for him. But his attitude didn't surprise Freeman.

“Hey, I guess that was some good brisket," he told Wiederer. "He wasn’t about to let that go to waste. You can’t get between a man and his brisket. I get it.”

More via the Chicago Tribune

Chicago Bears linebacker Jerrell Freeman in 2016. (Photo by Nam Y. Huh | Associated Press)

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