Metro driver Jae Williamson saved the life of a man choking on a piece of chicken on his bus, the Route 131 line, at 1st Ave. S. near SW 116th St. This occurred two Thursdays ago, July 27, at about 10:30 p.m., when he successfully performed the Heimlich maneuver.

Williamson, 43, acknowledged he performed a less effective maneuver the following Thursday as he rolled over a bees' nest while mowing his Kent lawn. He is now home, resting in a cast.

Here is how his life-saving heroics went down.

"I was driving the bus and heard a noise behind me," he recalled. "I looked in my mirror and saw this guy standing up, making loud gagging noises. He was skinny, probably about 50. I pulled the bus over, stopped, and asked him, 'Are you having a heart attack?' I noticed he was eating and then I could tell he was choking and I got behind him and made a fist."

He then performed the Heimlich maneuver.

"I'd never done it on a person," he said. "I'd done it on those dummies.

"And it worked," he added, still somewhat amazed. "The food came out and he was OK. We went on our merry way. He sort of thanked me. One passenger was going, 'Wow. Where did you learn to do that?' But everyone else was kind of like, 'Why are we stopped?' You know. Nobody cares at 10:30 at night.

"Technically you're not supposed to eat on the bus, so I busted him for that," he chuckled. "Not really."

And his less-than-heroic bee mishap that next Thursday?

"I had run into these bees before and knew where they were," he admitted. "But I ran right over them and they were stinging my ankles. I was hopping up and down like an idiot. I came down on the side of my ankle and heard this popping noise from the bone breaking.

"I like the two stories together," he reflected. "This is a story of Thursdays."