Dallas Mayor Saves Woman Choking at Restaurant

— -- Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings probably never imagined he would be saving a woman's life while out for lunch this weekend -- but that’s exactly what he did.

Rawlings used the Heimlich maneuver on a woman who was choking at the El Fenix restaurant in downtown Dallas Saturday afternoon, ABC affiliate WFAA-TV reports.

According to Rawlings, he was eating lunch when he heard screaming from the table behind him. Helen Mayer was choking on fajita meat in the company of her family members.

"Ms. Mayer was back, totally red, wasn't breathing,” recalled Rawlings. “[My son] Gunnar thought she was having a heart attack.”

"When I turned around, I started gasping for air," Mayer said. "I remember standing up and that's about all I remember."

Rawlings then sprang into action and performed the life-saving action, which he said he knew from his days as a lifeguard and Boy Scout.

Mayer initially didn’t know it was the Dallas mayor who came to her rescue.

"I came around and it was the mayor of Dallas,” she said. “It was like he was my hero."

Gunnar Rawlings said everyone clapped upon his father’s heroism.

“It was kind of out of a movie script," he said.