N.H. Gov. Chris Sununu Saves Choking Contestant at Lobster Roll Eating Competition: ‘People Weren’t Responding’

Mar. 15, 2025

New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu.Photo:Scott Eisen/Getty

Scott Eisen/Getty

New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu gave one of his constituents a helping hand over the weekend while attending a lobster roll eating competition.

Sununu told the outlet that he noticed one participant at the competition, held about 50 miles outside of Concord, having issues.

“The gentleman at the far end, who I was kind of watching — I glanced over, I could tell very quickly, he took, took a pause — he was having trouble getting something down,” the politician said.

Sununu recalled, “I started saying, ‘He’s choking, he’s choking,’ and I could tell people weren’t responding. So I just moved forward and immediately started to kind of give him the Heimlich.”

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In the video, the governor can be seen moving over to Moreno to help him get the food out of his throat, performing four moves before an EMT jumped in to finish the job to help Moreno breathe again. “It was crazy because it wasn’t so much the jumping in and doing it — I mean, that was wild in itself — but there was so much commotion,” Sununu said.

Moreno also spoke to WMUR, telling the local station that all he could think about in the moment was not choking — and finishing the contest.

“Lo and behold, the governor was the first one to notice what was actually happening,” Moreno told the outlet. “(I) was just kind of like, ‘All right, like, don’t freak out. You’re gonna get this out, and you’re gonna keep going.'”

He “went right back to the contest,” Sununu said, “which I couldn’t believe. He ate another seven lobster rolls after that. Right down the gullet.”

Moreno didn’t even realize who had helped him as he was choking.“My counter came up to me and, like, made a joke. And was like, ‘Oh, like, I bet nobody else can say that they’ve gotten the Heimlich from the governor before,’ ” Moreno said. “And I looked at him, was just like, ‘That was, that was the governor?’ "

source: people.com