From left, Lance Cpl. Aiden Morey, Lance Cpl. Christopher Butemeyer and Lance Cpl. Colton Allen in Tallinn, Estonia, on May 8, 2023. The three Marines saved a man’s life in Tallinn when they found him unconscious and not breathing in a restaurant on May 7. (U.S. Marine Corps)

Three U.S. Marines are being credited with saving the life of a restaurant patron in Estonia over the weekend who was unconscious and not breathing.

Lance Cpl. Colton Allen, Lance Cpl. Christopher Butemeyer and Lance Cpl. Aiden Morey were dining in the capital Tallinn on Sunday when they noticed an unconscious man in a nearby booth, Task Force 61/2 said in a statement Wednesday.

The three are assigned to a reconnaissance company that has been training Estonian allies for more than a month. The task force is deployed to the U.S. Naval Forces Europe-Africa/U.S. 6th Fleet area of operations.

Seeing that the man’s lips were blue and his skin also was beginning to turn color, Allen and Butemeyer cleared his airway while Morey called emergency services, the statement said.

“I felt confident in our abilities to do the job,” Butemeyer said in the statement. “We all knew what needed to be done and we all did our own individual tasks to help.”

While Butemeyer rubbed the man’s sternum to force him into consciousness, Allen monitored his pulse.

He still didn’t awaken, so the Marines moved him to the floor, placed him on his side and kept his airway clear until professional help arrived, the statement said.

Medical workers later helped the man regain consciousness. They said that without the intervention of the Marines, he would have suffocated, according to the statement.

“It feels good and surprising that we showed up at the right time and the right place,” Morey said.