We all know the Heimlich manoeuvre (you know! that force applied to the solar plexus to dislodge food in the windpipe), but the man who bears its name, only applied it for first time at 96!
Dr Henry Heimlich was staying in a retirement home but was clearly not retired in his mind, because when a female resident choked at the dinner table, he quickly applied several upward thrusts with a fist below the chest until the piece of meat popped out of her throat and she could breathe again.
It was the first time the retired chest surgeon had applied it since he invented it in 1974.
He said in an interview with the Guardian: “That moment was very important to me. I knew about all the lives my manoeuvre has saved over the years and I have demonstrated it so many times but here, for the first time, was someone sitting right next to me who was about to die.”
Dr Henry Heimlich’s technique for dislodging food or objects caught in people’s throats has been credited with saving thousands of lives around the world since he invented it.
NOTE: Choking is more common as one grows older, so it is a good technique to know.
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