"He's my hero," Debbie Giovinazzo said this week, tears glistening as her sweet grandson pulled up a chair to the kitchen table to recount the details of the terrifying ordeal.

Few 10-year-olds would ever be faced with such a difficult situation. And not only was Anthony courageous, he was ready - thanks to the 'what if' games that he has always played with his mother, Tamara Meeboer. That boy was ready for everything from tornadoes to fires.

Anthony stretches his arms wide to show how much he loves his Nana - the same arms that saved her life.

A Grade 5 student at St. Mark Catholic School, he was spending a sleepover at his grandmother's house in Beamsville. It was the usual Saturday routine both he and his sister, Abigail, 9, love - television, crafts, snacks and Nana's cooking.

"I walked in to the kitchen and said 'when will the pizza be done'?" Anthony said.

Debbie was at the stove cooking porkchops and had just sampled a bite when she turned to answer his question.

Taking a breath in, she swallowed a bone and within seconds, couldn't breathe and was in serious trouble.

"I gotta go get Poppa," Anthony said out loud about his grandfather, Anthony, and instead, without hesitating for a second, wrapped his arms around his Nana and began the emergency technique for preventing suffocation when a person's windpipe becomes blocked.

"I can't quit ... I won't give up," he chanted out loud, over and over again.

"I gotta call 9-1-1," he said as his Nana, her face a dark shade of red, was close to collapsing to the floor.

And again, too afraid to leave her and take the two steps to the phone, Anthony continued, "I won't give up ... I can't quit". He was so scared he couldn't even yell. Finally, the bone exploded out of Debbie's airway, landing in the sink with a plink, a tiny bone no bigger than her baby fingernail.

"I am so grateful he was here," Debbie said. "I'm so proud of him."

The pizza burned as the family debriefed, trying to absorb the enormity of what had just happened.

"What amazed me was when he wanted to get help, instead he kept on, repeating, I won't give up, I won't quit."

"He used his own little mantra for strength," Debbie said. "I thank God my daughter played the 'what if' game and gave him the basics to save my life," Debbie said. "Every child should learn the basics."

It was just that morning they were talking about the Titanic "and Mom said everything happens for a reason."

Tamara had told her son "if something happens and you're there, it's meant to be," and in order "to handle emergencies, stay calm."

Uncanny, as it turned out, but not uncommon for the St. Anns family to run through the drills of emergency preparedness.

Through the years, the "what if" drills had run the gamut of every imaginable emergency, from tornado warnings to "Mom's foot is on the gas pedal and she has gone unconscious, what do you do?"

"Mom taught me how to do the Heimlich two years ago."

"Push in and up," she said.

He remembered it all on his own, Debbie said. "At the end of it all we collapsed and cried. The emotion kicked in and he phoned his Mom."