In 1999, Kevin Stephan of Lancaster, New York, was a bat boy for his younger brother's little-league baseball team. During one game, a player who was warming up accidentally hit Kevin in the chest with a bat. Kevin fell to the ground, unconscious. His heart stopped beating.

"All I remember," Kevin says, "is that, all of a sudden, I got hit in the chest with something, and I turned around and passed out."

Fortunately, a nurse whose son played on the team was able to revive him. Kevin and his family later learned that the nurse, Penny Brown, was supposed to be at work that night but had been given the day off at the last minute.

The story doesn't stop there, however.

Seven years later, in January of 2006, Penny Brown was eating at the Hillview Restaurant in Depew, New York, when she began to choke on her food.

"The food wasn't going anywhere, and I totally couldn't breathe," said Penny. "It was very frightening."

Patrons began screaming for someone to help. One of the restaurant employees—a volunteer firefighter—ran out from the back. He wrapped his arms around the victim, applied the Heimlich maneuver, and saved the woman's life.

When the emergency was over, the patron and employee recognized each other. The person who saved Penny's life was 17-year-old Kevin Stephan, the same boy whom Penny had saved seven years earlier.

Sometimes doing unto others as we would have them do to us has greater implications than we might think.