A 12-year-old Long Island girl saved her best friend’s life as she choked on a piece of gum — with a little help from SpongeBob Square Pants.
Seventh-graders Allyson Golden and Miriam Starobin had just finished practicing songs in a music class Tuesday at Long Beach Middle School when teacher Sanford Mauskopf said something funny.
The two friends laughed so hard they toppled off their chairs.
“I was chewing gum, which I shouldn’t,” Allyson said yesterday.
“I was laughing hysteri cally and suddenly I real ized I’m not laughing any more. I can’t breathe. Then Miriam goes, ‘Ally, are you choking?’
“I can’t speak. So my arms are around my neck. I’m turning purple and my legs are flailing,” Allyson said.
“Miriam pulls me off the ground. She gives me the Heimlich three or four times and the gum comes shoot ing out onto the ground five feet in front of me.”
Miriam said she remembered see ing a cartoon epi sode involving SpongeBob’s neigh bor Squidward when she was a little girl.
“It was like a flash right in my eyes. I saw in my head Squidward with his clarinet lodged in his throat and then SpongeBob does the Heimlich maneuver and the clarinet comes flying out of his mouth,” she said.
“I had no clue what I was doing until it was done.”
Allyson said when she realized she couldn’t breathe “it was the scariest moment of my life. I was thinking ‘I’m going to die. What will my parents think?’ ”
When the gum popped out of her mouth, she gave her friend “the biggest hug” and told her, “Miriam, you just saved my life. I owe you big time and Miriam said, ‘Oh, no, no, you don’t. It’s no big deal.”
“Anyone would do it,” said Miriam, who isn’t sure what career she’ll aim for.
Mauskopf said he was at the piano listening to a student perform — and a music stand blocked his view of the girls.
Suddenly, he saw “a wad of white gum fly out of Allyson’s mouth. It went about five feet.”
“And I said what’s going on?” he recalled yesterday. After Miriam told him, Mauskopf replied, “Do you realize what you’ve just done? You’ve saved Allyson’s life. You’re a hero.”