An unlikely hero has been named in two recent life-saving events: SpongeBob SquarePants. Last week, the overly-optimistic fry cook from Bikini Bottom, was cited as the inspiration for 8-year-old Reese Ranceray of Long Valley, NJ, who rescued a 5-year-old friend from drowning in a lake. Reese credits both his swimming lessons and a water-rescue sequence he saw on an episode of “SpongeBob.”

"I watched this episode where Larry the lobster jumped in and saved someone," Reese told a WCBS newscaster.

And earlier this spring, Miriam Starovin, a seventh-grader from Long Beach, NY saved her best friend from choking while they were both in music class. She reported that she learned how to do the Heimlich maneuver by watching SpongeBob and his best friend Patrick perform the life-saving move on the cranky clarinet-playing Squidward.

"It was an episode where Squidward was playing the clarinet and swallowed it and SpongeBob and Patrick came in and SpongeBob did the Heimlich," Miriam told WCBS.

Choking and drowning are among the top five causes of accidental deaths. So next time you see the kids watching SpongeBob, sit down and take notes.

—Desiree Ferenczi