Eight-year-old Emmah Ross nearly choked to death on a mouthful of bacon during a family outing. Thankfully, an off-duty Ottawa police officer saved her life.

“Anything could have happened. Nobody else stepped up. She did and then just went back to her table like it was nothing,” Emmah’s mother Stefanie Ross told CTV Ottawa.

While celebrating her older brother’s birthday at a restaurant on Saturday, Emmah bit off more than she could chew.

“I was just eating some bacon and then I had too much in my mouth and then I started choking on it,” she said.

Emmah’s mother panicked and started banging on Emmah’s back, “which is the wrong thing to do,” she explained.

Luckily an off-duty police officer named Tina stepped in.

“A random stranger, she just came up behind my daughter, asked me if she was choking, I said yes, and then she did the Heimlich three times on her and it dislodged,” said Stefanie. “I feel deeply indebted to her.”

The family is now hoping to find out Tina’s last name to thank her properly.

“I would just say thanks again for like saving my life,” said Emmah.

Her mom told CTV Ottawa the incident has inspired her to take a CPR course so she can help if something like this ever happens again.

With a report from CTV Ottawa’s Annie Bergeron-Oliver