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(NC9)How do you thank someone for saving your child’s life?

Kristina Langford hopes to do just that by Paying it Forward.

She and her young son, Wyatt, meet us on a chilly morning in a Dalton store parking lot.

I spot her sitting in her truck with Wyatt all bundled up.

“Hi! You must be Kristina. It’s nice to meet you,” I say, and then I ask her who we are surprising.

Kristina tells me, “Mark Richardson” is this week’s $500 recipient.

Mark is a longtime family friend and a firefighter for the City of Dalton, but he was off the clock recently when a frightening emergency unfolded inside a school gymnasium.

Kristina says, “We were at our daughters’ ballgames in Calhoun, and my son was eating pickles, and we thought that he was swallowing them and he wasn’t. He started choking.”

Mark, who had been cheering on the game, quickly sprung from the stands to help his family friends and to rescue little Wyatt.

“I did everything I thought I could do and before I knew it Mark had him swept up and saved his life, “Kristina tells me tearfully.

“It just makes me so emotional thinking about it, but, we are very thankful that we get to do this for him.”

She and I count out $500 and head up the road and to the Dalton fire hall.

Mark’s shift has just ended as we make our way inside.

Kristina tells Mark, “I wanted to come talk to you about something.”

“Okay,” he replies as he looks around the room and sees colleagues and loved ones who’ve gathered.

She holds her son closely as she says to Mark, “I’m going to try to do it without crying. The other day when you saved Wyatt’s life… words cannot express what you’ve done for us and we want to say thank you so much.”

Kristina hands Mark five crisp $100 bills. “On behalf ofMcMahan Law Firm and NewsChannel 9 we’d like to Pay it Forward to you.”

“Thank you. Love you,” Mark says as he hugs Kristina and Wyatt.

Marks credits being nearby at that critical moment to a higher power.

“I was just there to do what I could do.”

And, he says his calm and quick thinking comes from hours of emergency training.