'I can't lose her. I already lost my dad': Boy saves choking mum week after dad died in crash

Michael O'Brien Jr, an eight-year-old in the second grade, calmly called 911 when his mother Marie Hunt was choking. Photo / Facebook

A hero Boy Scout is being hailed for helping to save his mother's life when she began choking just one week after his father died tragically in a car crash.

Michael O'Brien Jr, an eight-year-old living in Middleboro, Massachusetts, calmly called 911 when his mother was choking on April 26, just ten days after his father died tragically in a single-car crash.

Mom Marie Hunt had just been making some oatmeal muffins before Michael Jr went to school, when she tried one and began choking and couldn't speak.

"Please God, don't let me die in front of this kid. He's already been through so much," Hunt recalled thinking in an interview with the Taunton Gazette.

Michael Jr's father, auto mechanic Michael O'Brien Sr, had died at age 34 in a car crash just 10 days earlier, on Easter Sunday.

Police said he lost control of his vehicle while driving on a residential street at about 6.26pm, with speed a potential factor.

"I thought, 'Don't panic or mum's going to get scared.' I held it together and it worked," Michael Jr recalled.

"I can't lose her. I already lost my dad," the boy told Fox 25.

Michael Jr's dad, Michael O'Brien Sr, died in a car crash at age 34 just 10 days before the choking incident. Photo / Facebook

An active Boy Scout member, an activity he enjoyed doing alongside his dad, Michael Jr said the training he got helped him know how to respond.

"It taught me to always be aware of what's happening around you. If someone's hurt you stay calm and call 911," he said.

'I'm like, trying to keep a non-scared face. I didn't want her to panic more. That might affect it. I picked up the phone and dialled it, and then talked to the dispatcher until they got there,' said Michael Jr.

Although the food dislodged from her throat before paramedics arrived, Hunt says she's not sure it would have ended so well without her son's quick-thinking response.

"When I dropped him off at school that morning, he was already able to joke about it. He said, 'Mum, no eating for the rest of the day. No one will be home to save you'," Hunt recalled.

Although Hunt, a mental health professional, had separated from O'Brien Sr and remarried, she said he played an active role in her son's life up until his death.

"He was a great father," she said.