ORLANDO, Fla. (NewsNation Now) — An Orlando waitress’ keen thinking saved a boy from abuse after she used a note to ask him if he needed help, police said.

The 11-year-old boy was dining at the Mrs. Potato restaurant on New Year’s Day with his mother, stepfather and 4-year-old sister when waitress Flavaine Carvalho noticed the child wasn’t eating, even though food had been brought to the table.

“When I came to the table I observed the boy was denied food,” Carvalho said. She said she asked the table if their food and drinks were alright. When one of the adults replied that the boy would eat his dinner at home, Carvalho said she began to think something else was wrong.

She then saw bruising on the boy’s face and arm and decided to do what she could do to help him.

“I just thought I need to do something,” Carvalho explained.

Caravalho wrote a note asking the boy if he was ok and stood behind the parents where they couldn’t see.

The boy nodded no. Carvalho said he didn’t convince her. So, she decided to write another note.

This one said, “Do you need help?” Carvalho said the boy nodded yes and made a movement with his hands showing he didn’t know what to do.

Carvalho called her boss and then called 911.

Police arrived and questioned the child, who told detectives he had suffered abuse at the hands of his stepfather, identified by police as Timothy Lee Wilson II, Detective Erin Lawler with the Orlando Police special victims unit said during a news conference.

The boy told detectives he had been hit with a wooden broom, hung upside down from a door, and was regularly denied food as punishment.

Wilson was arrested at the restaurant, and the boy’s mother, Kristen Swann, was taken into custody on Jan. 6 after the boy made additional disclosures of alleged abuse, Lawler said.

The stepfather has been charged with multiple counts of aggravated child abuse and neglect, court records show.

Swann admitted to detectives she knew about the abuse and failed to seek medical care for her son. She is charged with two counts of child neglect, court records show.

The 4-year-old child was also removed from the home following the arrests of the parents and was found to not have suffered any abuse, according to Lawler.

“Because of her, two children were saved,” Orlando Police Chief Orlando Rolon said at a news conference. “We probably would have been talking about a potential homicide investigation if she had not intervened when she did.”