Alone with a choking stranger, screaming for help that didn’t come, I learned sometimes you have to get involved | Charlie Brinkhurst-Cuff

I was terrified I'd do the wrong thing when a woman began gasping for air on the London underground. But doing nothing was not an option

When I was nine, my oldest friend nearly choked to death on a gobstopper. We had snuck out of my back garden to get sweets, a girl gang of four, hopping over a low wall and armed with enough pennies for at least one treat each. In the end, probably copying each other, we had bought gobstoppers - white terrazzo boiled sweets with a chewing-gum centre that took plenty of licking to get to. We were having an excellent time until, halfway home, my friend started to cough - and then choke.

Her face went red, her eyes looked panicked and she started to wheeze. We called for help, but no one was around, apart from some boys we had made fun of on the way to the corner shop. They ignored our cries. Eventually, after we rammed her on the back a few times, she coughed up the monstrous thing into a pot plant. I haven't had a gobstopper since and I have carried with me a fear of watching someone choke again. Sadly, as I discovered this week, lightning can strike twice.

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