When Matt Paske arrived home from baseball practice, he changed into clean clothes and sat down at the dinner table with his parents, Carolyn and Rick, and siblings, Stephanie and Jeff. Matt never imagined what would happen next.

Carolyn Paske took a bite of her steak, but the meat became lodged in her throat. She jumped up from the table and began pacing back and forth. Rick yelled at Matt to grab her. Matt thought his mother was going to be sick, but when she placed her hands around the front of her neck, he knew she was choking. The episode happened March 20.

Thankfully, last summer Matt, 16, had taken a lifeguarding class that threw him into action at the dinner table. The American Red Cross class in Raleigh had covered first aid, CPR and water-rescue techniques.

Using the skills he learned, Matt got behind his mother and began performing the abdominal thrust, often called the Heimlich maneuver.

"I didn't really understand it was a life-or-death situation until I started actually using the Heimlich," Matt said. "I just focused on trying to help my mom and everyone else didn't really matter."

Four or five thrusts later, the steak came up slightly, but as soon as Carolyn took a gulp of air, it got lodged in her throat again. "I was very scared and I could feel myself at some point running out of air," Carolyn Paske said. "I could tell it had to come out immediately or I was gone."

Her husband began calling 911, but Matt's second attempt to save his mother worked. After the steak came out, the mother threw her arms around her son and said, "You saved my life, buddy. You saved my life."

While Carolyn comforted the other children, both visibly shaken by the incident, her husband breathed a sigh of relief. He had put all his faith into Matt, but knew it would have been smarter to call 911 first.

"The interesting thing to me is I was very aware of what was going on, but I knew Matt could do the things that needed to happen, so I was confident Matt would take care of it," Rick said. "It just almost seemed like it was so obvious that it was going to take care of itself properly, that there was no need for professional help, even though it was absolutely the wrong thing to do."

After his mother recovered from her ordeal, Matt went back to the dinner table to finish his steak. The rest of the family hasn't been able to stomach the thought of steak since the incident.

Rick and Carolyn were so proud of their son, they contacted the American Red Cross to share their story.

Mira Batchelor, director of health and safety services for the Triangle Red Cross, began to cry when she heard how Matt saved his mother. She had a similar experience when her 9-month-old granddaughter began choking on a piece of banana seven years ago.

Batchelor hit the child on the back several times until the food popped out, but can still remembers the look of panic on the little girl's face.

"We have people call us the next day after something has happened and they want training right away because they are so traumatized by the experience of someone being injured and they not knowing what to do," Batchelor said. "It's a traumatic thing to be standing there and what if it was your loved one and you didn't know what to do?"

The Red Cross was so impressed with Matt's quick thinking that they are honoring him with a certificate of merit on Monday at the Regency Park office. The Triangle Red Cross has awarded only two other people with the high honor this past year. The award, signed by President George W. Bush, still has Matt somewhat fazed.

"I am surprised and honored at the same time," said Matt, a sophomore at Athens Drive High School. "I didn't know it was going to end up being that big of a deal, but apparently it is."

His father added, "I think the award he's getting, he deserves that because not everybody is willing to jump in and pitch in that way." Jared Taylor, the lifeguarding class instructor, said Matt is the first student he has known who actually applied the skills he learned to a real-life situation.

"To hear that is, like, wow, the small thing I do because I love it has now brought a family closer together and saved someone's life," he said. "It was, like, wow, I am really changing someone's life. Every once in a while it's nice to hear you actually made a difference."

Matt's parents both have training in CPR. His siblings, Jeff, 15, and Stephanie, 11, will be signing up for classes soon.

The Red Cross trains more than 30,000 people in CPR, first aid and lifeguarding each year in Wake County, but most people hope they never have to use those skills.

"We were the last people in the world to think this would ever happen," Rick Paske said. "He was taking this training to work at a pool, not save his mother's life. It was a fluke occurrence, that's for sure, but it doesn't diminish the importance."