My father, Dr. Henry Heimlich, invented the Heimlich maneuver. He passed away in 2016. He would have been distraught to hear of this case, not only because no one attempted to save the man with the Heimlich maneuver but because they used back blows, which, unsurprisingly were unsuccessful. Unlike the American Heart Association, the Red Cross tells people to use back blows as a first response for choking. The say to administer 5 back blows and then 5 Heimlich maneuvers (or "abdominal thrusts.") The trouble is, the Red Cross has never produced evidence that shows back blows are superior to the Heimlich maneuver, while the maneuver saves people's lives every day, according to press reports. One study shows that back blows can drive an object deeper into the throat. Furthermore, with the Red Cross focusing so much on back blows, no one learns that they can also use the Heimlich maneuver to save yourself (as someone above pointed out) or an unconscious or heavy person (you do that lying down). You can't use back blows to accomplish either of those things. The Red Cross should take this life-and-death matter more seriously and go back to teaching people to first use the Heimlich maneuver when someone is choking. Since a person can die in 4 minutes, seconds count.
I caught a factual error and a half-truth in my sister Janet Heimlich's post. I've also posted links to a first-rate 2009 Australian Broadcasting documentary re: the history of our father's namesake anti-choking treatment and a thought-provoking recent blog item by a U.S. cardiologist.
The American Heart Association (and most first aid agencies worldwide) recommend back blows as an effective treatment for responding to a choking emergency. More via this page on my website http://tinyurl.com/hnuxyxs "One study shows that back blows can drive an object deeper into the throat."
Janet -- a former journalist who edited our dad's 2014 memoir http://tinyurl.com/yau8h6nd -- is presumably referring to the now-tainted study by the late Richard Day L. MD et al of Yale published by the journal Pediatrics in 1982.
Research by my wife Karen M. Shulman and me revealed that our dad, the late Henry J. Heimlich MD, clandestinely funded the study.
Prior to 2005, AHA guidelines included citations of the Day study. That year I shared our research with Jerry Potts, PhD, Director of Science at the AHA's ECC Programs. The citation has not appeared in subsequent AHA guidelines.
Because of the Yale connection, I also shared our research with veteran medical reporter Abram Katz at the New Haven Register which resulted in this 10/23/06 report http://tinyurl.com/zvesjs9
Also see this 6/7/82 thank-you letter from dad to Dr. Day which I obtained from the Yale archives http://tinyurl.com/j3n8jbk "The Heimlich manoeuvre" by Aviva Ziegler, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 7/27/09 http://tinyurl.com/y92fwr6w "A Call To Reconsider The Heimlich Experiment: Let’s Scientifically Determine The Best Approach To Choking Victims" by Anthony Pearson MD, The Skeptical Cardiologist (Dr. Pearson's blog), 8/15/18 http://tinyurl.com/ybnxkqvs
Via European Resuscitation Council Guidelines, Resuscitation 95 (2015) 1–80 http://goo.gl/RpE76u
...The International Liaison Committee on Resuscitation (ILCOR, www.ilcor.org) includes representatives from the American Heart Association (AHA), the European Resuscitation Council (ERC), the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada (HSFC), the Australian and New Zealand Committee on Resuscitation (ANZCOR), the Resuscitation Council of Southern Africa (RCSA), the Inter-American Heart Foundation (IAHF), and the Resuscitation Council of Asia (RCA).
...Treatment for severe airway obstruction
For conscious adults and children over one year of age with complete FBAO [Foreign Body Airway Obstruction], case reports have demonstrated the effectiveness of back blows or ‘slaps’, abdominal thrusts and chest thrusts. The likelihood of success is increased when combinations of back blows or slaps, and abdominal and chest thrusts are used.
Phil Heimlich was the politician he's come to despise.
"I regret not showing more courage," he told Politics Extra.
It's a harsh reality Heimlich has come to grips with since he left public office 10 years ago this month.
...Heimlich, 64, has never come back to politics since that bruising and brutally expensive 2006 loss to Democrat David Pepper in the commissioner's race. Heimlich has no plans to come back, but the Republican still loves to talk politics.
Phil:Just to fully give you my kind of priorities. I'm also what you'd call
an Evangelical. I'm a Christ follower. But...and I got something to say
to my fellow Evangelicals.And I'll quote the words of a commentator, a
liberal commentator. But I'll quote him but it's true. What he said was,
and I agree, "Our support for Donald Trump exposes us as the shameless
hypocrites we've always been."
11/16/18 UPDATE: Hat tip to an attentive reader who informed me that in 2009 Maher was the recipient of the Atheist Alliance of America's Richard Dawkins Award.
Please be advised that District employees and Board members will not respond to any further communication from you, with the exception of requests for (public records)...
(Tim) Hite, a professional firefighter, now promotes the Dechoker
life-saving medical device which is used to suction objects from the
airways of toddlers, children and adults.
Recently, Hite sold several sets of the Dechokers to the
Allegany-Limestone Central School District, the first school district in
the state to purchase the items.
(Allegany-Limestone) Middle-High School Principal Cory Pecorella said the school district purchased two packages of the suction devices for each of the campuses.
...Pecorella said he learned of the device from Hite, whom he serves with in the Allegany Volunteer Fire Department.
“(Hite) contacted me and wanted to demonstrate the product for us,” Pecorella said. “We bought right into it.
Per my blog, it's unclear if Mr. Pecorella and Mr. Hite have a business relationship.
Those concerns seemed like reasonable grounds on which to request an investigation in order to determine if the Allegany-Limestone school's purchase and implementation of the devices was in compliance with applicable guidelines.
My problem? I don't know the appropriate office where to file that and per Superintendent Giannicchi's letter, if I ask him or another district employee or the school board how to proceed, they're prohibited from responding.
The only option I could think of was to request guidance from New York State Commissioner of Education MaryEllen Elia -- see below. (Click here to download a copy.)
If/when I receive a reply, I'll report the results.
* My original headline began "Olean, NY school principal..." H/T to a knowledgeable reader who informed me "Allegany-Limestone Central Schools are not Olean schools. The two districts abut each other, but are separate," so I changed to "Olean, NY-area."
For information originating from Dechoker LLC (Denver, CO) and to purchase the device, click here for the company's home page. For more information and to purchase the device, see the websites of Dechoker UK (Northampton), Dechoker Spain (Madrid), and Dechoker Sweden (Gothenburg).
Resuscitation Council UK is aware that several airway clearing
devices for the treatment of choking are now available in the UK. There
is insufficient evidence on the safety or effectiveness of these devices
for us to recommend their use, and we are concerned that the use of
these devices could delay established treatments for choking; for this
reason, Resuscitation Council UK does not support their use.
Appropriately trained healthcare professionals can already use
advanced techniques such as suction or laryngoscopy and forceps for
airway foreign body removal. We recommend that new airway clearance
devices should only be used by trained healthcare professionals as part
of a formal evaluation.
April 5, 2018 Swedish CPR Council report re: anti-choking devices by
Henrik Wagner MD PhD, Jan Gelberg MD, Andreas Claesson RN PhD. Click here for original Swedish version; click here for English version via Google Translate.
April 25, 2019 statement by the Spanish Council of Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation re: anti-choking devices. Click here for original Spanish version; click here for English version via Google Translate.
For the critical outcome of survival (n=1 study, Saperstein 2018),
and important outcome of relief of foreign body airway obstruction
(FBAO) (n=1 study, Saperstein 2018), we identified only observational
studies. The overall quality of evidence was rated as very low for all
outcomes primarily due to a very serious risk of bias. The individual
studies were all at very serious risk of bias due to confounding.
Because of this and a high degree of heterogeneity, no meta-analyses
could be performed and individual studies are difficult to interpret.
For the critical outcome of survival, we identified very low
certainty of evidence downgraded for very serious risk of bias from one
case series study (Saperstein 2018) which survival in 10 patients
treated with a suction-based airway clearance device.
For the important outcome of relief of FBAO, we identified very low
certainty of evidence downgraded for very serious risk of bias from one
case series study (Saperstein 2018) which reported relief of FBAO in 10
patients treated with a suction-based airway clearance device.
Two new easy-to-use devices work like plungers to suck out obstructions in the airway, providing another option if standard treatment—such as abdominal thrusts developed in 1974 by Henry Heimlich—fail to clear the airway, say the companies who sell them.
...Both the Dechoker, $89.95, and the LifeVac, $69.95, have a plastic mask that provides a seal over the mouth and nose while suction is provided. The Dechoker looks like a large syringe, while the LifeVac’s plunger is shaped like a small accordion.
...Skeptics include Dr. Heimlich, now 96. Such a device may not be handy in the “unexpected instance that a person chokes,” Dr. Heimlich, a retired thoracic surgeon from Cincinnati, says in a statement released by his son, Phil Heimlich. “Any action that delays use of the Heimlich maneuver or complicates the rescue can be deadly.”
According to staff at Brookholme Residential Care Homes in Chesterfield, a resident began choking and turned blue after eating a piece of bacon. Staff told a Dechoker representative in the UK that abdominal thrusts did not work, and that they believe the resident would have died without the Dechoker.
...Kerry Toulson, manager of Dudbrook Hall in Brentwood Essex said: “We recognised that one of our residents, in particular, was at serious risk of choking on her food which was a real worry.
...“Approximately four weeks after our training, a resident who we were concerned with had been assessed as requiring a fork-mashable diet. One lunchtime they choked and lost consciousness.”
When staff failed to remove the object by using traditional methods of back blows and abdominal thrusts, staff began using the Dechoker. The blockage was removed easily, and the resident recovered quickly.
Anti-choking devices: a lot of servile "journalism" and no clinical trials by Esther Samper, Hipertextual, May 26, 2019. Click here for original Spanish version; click here for English version via Google Translate
Staff at a Wyre Forest care home have praised an innovative anti-choking device which was used to save the life of a resident who "turned blue" after choking on a piece of sausage.
First-aiders at Casa Mia Care Home in Far Forest turned to the Dechoker as a last resort after back slaps and abdominal thrusts failed to revive a woman who fell unconscious for between three and four minutes during dinner on July 18.
Team leaders Tracey Hemmings, aged 46, and Lorraine Swain, aged 58, say the woman, who suffers with a mood disorder which affects her mobility, "would have died" if it wasn't for the device.
..."Lorraine had already tried back slaps but that didn't work, so we started doing abdominal thrusts. When that didn't work we realised the severity of the situation and called 999.
"She was totally unresponsive and started to turn blue.
"We grabbed the Dechoker as a last resort. We have three of them in the home and were all trained how to use them last year.
..."She started breathing again. It was amazing.
"Lorraine and I both said she would have died otherwise. It was a really close call."
The resident was the 31st person to be saved by a Dechoker...
Casa Mia now wants to encourage other care homes in the area to invest in a Dechoker...
