QUINCY, Fla. — A Gadsden County sheriff's deputy assigned to courthouse security stepped in when a baby began choking on a piece of hard candy, clearing the child's airway with two firm back blows in an episode the sheriff's office said lasted about 30 seconds.

Deputy Kamryn Weeks, a member of the Gadsden County Sheriff's Office Bailiff Unit, saw the emergency while the child's mother was handling paperwork at the county courthouse, according to a Fox 49 report published Sept. 7.

The station reported, citing the sheriff's office, that a small piece of Jolly Rancher candy had become lodged in the baby's throat. When the mother could not remove it, Weeks took the child, positioned the baby on his knee and administered two firm back blows. The candy came out.

A fast response inside the courthouse

Fox 49 reported that the baby remained conscious, did not change color and cried during the episode. Those details are included only because the sheriff's office released them as part of its account; ThinBlueNews is not drawing any independent medical conclusion from them.

A separate WCTV report published Thursday evening corroborated the central sequence. WCTV identified Weeks, said he saw the child choking while the mother struggled to help, and reported that the candy was dislodged with two firm blows to the back. The station said the baby was okay and that the incident took about 30 seconds.

Neither local report names the child or the mother, and ThinBlueNews is preserving that privacy boundary. This article does not publish a photograph of the child, speculate about the family's circumstances or provide medical advice.

Weeks said he simply helped

According to both reports, Weeks did not regard his intervention as extraordinary. Fox 49 said the deputy explained that he helped because someone needed it. The child's mother thanked him before leaving and then returned to thank him again, the sheriff's office told the station.

The story is a reminder that civilian law-enforcement work can demand immediate action even in a courthouse assignment far removed from a patrol call. In this case, the available public record describes no chase, arrest or long emergency operation—only a deputy who recognized a crisis at close range and acted before it worsened.

What the public record establishes

The two current local reports agree on the material facts: the emergency happened at the Gadsden County Courthouse in Quincy; Weeks was serving with the sheriff's office Bailiff Unit; a piece of candy obstructed the baby's airway; two back blows dislodged it; and the child was reported to be okay. Fox 49 first published its account Monday morning, while WCTV's Thursday report brought the rescue back into the current local-news cycle.

Both outlets attribute the incident details to the Gadsden County Sheriff's Office. That common sourcing matters: the reports corroborate one another's published account, but they do not represent two wholly independent eyewitness investigations. ThinBlueNews has therefore limited this article to the facts those outlets consistently report and has not supplied an exact incident date that the stories do not state.

Sources and visual disclosure

Source boundary: both local outlets attribute the underlying facts to the Gadsden County Sheriff's Office. ThinBlueNews independently checked the publication times and the factual overlap in their current reports but did not locate an accessible official incident release carrying additional details.

Visual note: the featured image is a ThinBlueNews-owned, photo-independent editorial treatment built around the reported 30-second duration. It does not depict the deputy, child, candy, courthouse or rescue and is not a reconstruction.

If an agency representative or reader sees anything that should be corrected or updated, please contact ThinBlueNews through our corrections and editorial standards page.