The poster artist's identity and intent is unknown, but the zombie resembles my father, the late Henry J. Heimlich, MD, pictured here with his cousin once removed, actor Anson Williams, best known for playing the character Potsie on the TV sitcom Happy Days. (Anson is the son of my dad's first cousin, the late Haskell "Hal" Heimlich.")
Heimlich Heroes teaches the public to perform "the Heimlich" (abdominal thrusts) on infants.
To my knowledge, no legitimate medical organization or medical expert recommends the treatment for babies.
Why not?
According to e-mails I received from executives at the American Heart Association (Greg Donaldson) and the American Red Cross (Don Lauritzen), performing abdominal thrusts on infants "may cause injuries."
Further, to my knowledge there has never been any published research on the subject.
In other words, Heimlich Heroes has apparently taught 100,000 people that, when confronted with a life or death situation with your baby, you should perform an unapproved, experimental, potentially-harmful medical treatment.
A recent Cincinnati Enquirer story
went global, aided and abetted by the Associated Press. It was perfect
click bait. The story said that at 96, Cincinnatian Henry Heimlich used
his Maneuver for the first time to save a life (of a purported choking victim, 87-year-old Patty Ris, at the Deupree House senior residence*).
...After Peter Heimlich alerted The Enquirer and others to a similar claim (his father had made) years ago, the paper backed away from the novelty. It assigned a second reporter to redo the story, adding and explaining doubts about the “first” in the longest crawl-back I can remember.
Peter Heimlich told me that in addition to The Enquirer and AP, “these are some of the news outlets I filed corrections requests with last week: CNN, NBC News, The New York Daily News, and WCPO-TV. At this writing, none have corrected the errors.”
* Reporters at McKnight's and Slate have questioned the veracity of the Deupree House story. So have I.
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Since Spring 2003, my father has been thoroughly exposed as a medical charlatan, a serial liar, and a con man in scores of media reports, two of the first being these Sunday front-pagers in the Cincinnati Enquirer (based on research by my wife Karen and me).
It's tough to prove someone intentionally lied and Rosemeyer's story included some verbal acrobatics perhaps intended to step around that dead elephant in the room:
Maybe Henry Heimlich simply misremembered. Or maybe news reports from the early 2000s simply weren't true.
Either way, there's an irresolvable conflict: When did Dr. Heimlich first perform his namesake maneuver?
A month ago, just a few days before National Heimlich Maneuver Day, the Cincinnati doctor said he'd finally used it for the first time. He's 96 years old, and he invented the move to help choking victims more than 40 years ago.
Pretty incredible that he hadn't used it before then, right?
Except Heimlich apparently told the BBC in 2003 he'd performed it three years earlier, in 2000.
...Several other media outlets also covered that earlier story.
...The doctor's son, Phil Heimlich, said he, his sister and father have no recollection of the incident 16 years ago.
"It would have been a major news story, so we would have remembered," he said.
Presumably the "irresolvable conflict" could be resolved by asking my father, but the story didn't include any quotes from Dr. Maneuver or any indication that he'd been contacted, so I asked Rosemeyer about that.
He replied, "Phil said Henry had some health problems since last month, so he was calling me back instead."
Is this the first time Dr. Heimlich has ever used the maneuver to save a life?
“Yes, this is,” he said Friday. “I originally did my research studies that led to my developing it, which was in 1974, and I never considered that I would be doing it myself.”
The record is murky in that regard. A BBC article in 2003 quoted the doctor, then 83, describing a similar encounter where he tried the maneuver on a fellow diner, a man, although the story lacked details such as a precise date, location and name. A New Yorker article in 2006 made reference to a similar incident, also without details. But a son, Phil Heimlich, said his father had never mentioned any previous incidents to him. The doctor himself did not return a follow-up call.
Finally, if my father's ill, I wish him a speedy recovery.
And when he's better, I'd encourage reporters to interview him to perhaps resolve the "irresolvable conflict."
And if any reporters need someone on the record calling him a liar, I'm available.
The second problem is a bone I have to pick about inattentive reporting.
More about that later.
The first problem's the headline and the lead.
The surgeon who gave his name to the simple but dramatic procedure used to rescue people from choking saved someone’s life with the Heimlich Manoeuvre for the first time this week aged 96. [sic]
...(On Monday, May 23) the retired chest surgeon encountered a female resident at his retirement home in Cincinnati [the Deupree House] who was choking at the dinner table.
Per the videos at the end of this item, my father, my brother Phil, and 87-year-old Patty Ris (the "ostensible choking victim" according to Slate) claimed this was the first time my father saved the life of a choking victim using his namesake maneuver.
If my father -- no slouch when it comes to ginning up press coverage -- had shared that information with Cincinnati reporters, obviously it would have gone viral, just as the recent story did.
But the Banker's Club tale was never reported by any news outlets in Cincinnati.
As my father undoubtedly realized, local reporters would have fact-checked it.
Then there's a December 2009/January 2010 Health Monitor article by Cleveland writer/editor Mary Mihaly entitled Heimlich's Latest Maneuvers:
Inevitably, talk turns to (Dr. Heimlich's) “latest maneuver” - his upcoming autobiography, Heimlich’s Maneuvers, to be published shortly by Bartleby Press.
...But there’s one anecdote you won’t find in Heimlich’s Maneuvers - the doctor’s own use of the Heimlich maneuver to save someone’s life. The
famous doctor has never had the opportunity to administer the maneuver on a choking victim - yet.
A BBC article in 2003 quoted (Dr. Heimlich), then 83, describing a similar encounter
where he tried the maneuver on a fellow diner, a man, although the story lacked details such as a precise date, location and name. A New Yorker article in 2006 made reference to a similar incident, also without details. But a son, Phil Heimlich, said his father had never mentioned any previous incidents to him. The doctor himself did not return a follow-up call.
Back to the Guardian story, here's what I meant by inattentive reporting:
If my father's quote is accurate, either the local department of health should be notified that the Deupree House is serving substandard hamburger meat -- or my father didn't keep his story straight.
I know plenty of reporters and editors who wouldn't have let that one get by without a follow-up question, especially when the source has a history of lying to the press and publishing phony case reports (here, here, and here).
But it's not to late for the Guardian or other news outlets to ask Dr. Maneuver to clarify.
If any reporters do ask him, maybe he could also respond to this?
Slate and McKnight's have questioned whether the May 23 choking incident at the retirement may have been a publicity stunt staged as a tie-in to "National Heimlich Maneuver
Day" which fell only a week later on June 1.
On Monday evening, when a woman who happened to be sitting next to
him in their upscale Cincinnati retirement community choked on a piece
of hamburger, 96-year-old Heimlich sprung into action.
"I immediately knew she was choking," Heimlich told NBC News. "I just realized, I've got to go over and save her."
...(Patty Gill) Ris, a former third-grade teacher who just moved to Deupree in March, hadn't met Heimlich before that night.
But was that night really the first time they'd met?
Spizzirri's post is dated just six days after the May 23 purported choking incident at Deupree House.
Either my father's a fast worker or perhaps he and Patty Ris bonded after defeating the life-threatening hamburger. Or was it the meat with the bone in it?
Incidentally, "former third-grade teacher" Patty Ris was married to a prominent and apparently well-heeled business owner, the late Howard C. Ris.
According to a January 13, 2012 remembrance, he enjoyed "life in his home at the Country Club of Florida in Boynton Beach, Fla. [just south of Palm Beach]; where he and his devoted wife of 34 years, Patricia (Gill) Ris have lived since 1983."
Those who know my father well are aware that he's always had a thing for women with money.
The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine's The Henry J. Heimlich Award for Innovative Medicine
When the history books are written, I predict that my father will finally be awarded the recognition he deserves as a spectacular medical con man and master media manipulator.
As I told the LA Weekly, "My father is such a brilliant promoter, he could teach P.T. Barnum a few tricks."
But last week the master may have gone too far.
On Thursday evening, this headline was attached to a Cincinnati Enquirer article by staff reporter Kevin Grasha:
Less than 24 hours later, the headline and the article were substantially rewritten.
Via the body of the article, here's why (emphasis added):
When he heard that a resident was choking, Perry Gaines, maître d’ for the Deupree House dining room, ran toward the table.
...When Gaines arrived at the table, Dr. Henry Heimlich, a 96-year-old resident of the Deupree House who invented the famous technique for clearing a blocked airway, was standing behind the woman, ready to perform it.
Typically, a staff member would do it. “But,” Gaines said, pausing, “it is Dr. Heimlich.”
Heimlich, who swims and exercises regularly, was able to dislodge a piece of hamburger that had become stuck in 87-year-old Patty Ris’s airway.
...Monday’s incident at the Deupree House was the first time Heimlich...used it to stop someone from choking, he said.
The first time?
Not according to what my father told these four reporters in articles from 2001 through 2006.
TO THE RESCUE
The story sounds like it could be an urban legend, but it actually happened in the dining room of the Bankers Club in Cincinnati. During a busy lunchtime, a guest of the club began choking as he sat eating at a table. A member sitting at another table promptly rushed to the aid of the victim, wrapped his arms around the man’s waist, and pressed his fist upward into his abdomen, expelling the trapped object from the clogged airway. The quick-thinking member was none other than Dr. Henry Heimlich, who surprisingly had never before performed his namesake Heimlich maneuver in an emergency situation. But the good doctor says performing the maneuver in this scenario was “as easy as that. I’ve practiced enough, I guess, in my life"...At 81 years old, Dr. Heimlich stays active playing tennis, works daily at the Heimlich Institute, and speaks at medical meetings to promote ongoing research being done at the Institute. And if the lunchtime menu includes saving a life, he will always make room for that too. — Louis Marroquin
But despite being the inventor of one of the most significant medical techniques, Dr Heimlich told BBC News Online that he has only been called upon once to carry it out himself - and that was just three years ago.
"I was in this club restaurant eating when I heard someone calling Dr Heimlich. I turned around and saw a man choking so I did the Heimlich Manoeuvre and got it out and then went on and had my lunch."
Twenty-six years after inventing the Heimlich maneuver, Dr. Henry Heimlich finally had an opportunity to try it himself.
Heimlich was having lunch last year when he was urgently called to the side of a man choking on his food. Heimlich wrapped his arms around the man and made a fist against his upper abdomen. He thrust upward and out popped the food. Another life saved.
"I just did it and went back to eating," Heimlich said.
Heimlich said anyone could have done it.
Via Choke Artist by Lauren Collins, The New Yorker, May 8, 2006:
Dr. Heimlich himself said the other day that he has performed the move only once, in Cincinnati.
It looks like you've been punk'd, but it's unclear how badly. As you may know, for decades my father has provided all sorts of false information to reporters at the Enquirer and plenty of other media outlets. Former Enquirer Robert Anglen busted him on one such fabrication in this March 16, 2003 Sunday front-pager: http://www.enquirer.com/editions/2003/03/16/loc_heimlich16.html
...The New Yorker interview was only a decade ago and although my father's getting up there in years, knowing his keen memory, I'd be surprised if he would have completely forgotten the incident.
Also, this morning you wrote me that my brother Phil Heimlich told you that this was the first time my father ever revived a choking victim using "the Heimlich." As you may know, as longtime vice president of the Heimlich Institute, my brother has a close professional as well as personal relationship with my father and has always lived in Cincinnati. Frankly, it doesn't make sense that Phil would be unaware of my father's choking rescue at the Banker's Club.
We will be updating our story before long. Thank you for sharing this information with us.
Mr. Grasha is out of the office for several days. Please refrain from emailing him over the holiday weekend.
Sincerely,
Michael Kilian
Later that evening at the same link, the Enquirer disappeared the original story and substituted a significant rewrite co-bylined by Mr. Grasha and staff reporter Bowdeya Tweh that included much of the information provided in my corrections request. (Click here for a copy of the now-MIA original version.)
Monday might not have been the first time Dr. Henry Heimlich performed his namesake medical procedure on a live choking victim.
...Heimlich told The Enquirer Thursday his encounter with Patty Ris at the Deupree House senior living facility, where they both live, was the first time he ever performed it on a person needing immediate aid. However, several published reports in the early 2000s from news outlets ranging from the BBC to the Chicago Sun-Times show interviews with Heimlich describing himself using the maneuver. In one interview, he said he helped a man at the former private dining club, the Banker's Club, in Downtown Cincinnati in 2001.
...Cincinnati.com initially published a story late Thursday about the incident, quoting Heimlich as saying this was the first time he'd ever performed his own maneuver on someone. But then one of his sons, Peter Heimlich, reached out to media organizations pointing out the existence of articles roughly 15 years ago.
Not even my brother Phil -- who for decades has been my father's right-hand man and attack dog -- would back him up this time:
Another son, local attorney Phil Heimlich, said he doesn't recall those media reports.
"All I can say is none of us had a recollection of it," Phil Heimlich said. "If dad did it, I would’ve heard about it."
This video clip may be the reason why.
It comes from a five-minute video interview of Phil that was widely-distributed to the media last week by Episcopal Retirement Services, which owns and operates Deupree House (more about that below):
Then the Enquirer's coup de grâce:
...It isn't the first time Heimlich's statements have been challenged. In 2003, The Enquirer reported that Romanian surgeon Dr. Dan Gavriliu disputed statements from the Cincinnati doctor that he developed an operation that uses a section of the stomach to bypass the esophagus. The Romanian doctor claimed Heimlich took credit for a procedure he developed years earlier.
In other words, when the Enquirer realized that my father had punk'd them, the paper responded by reminding readers about this singular March 16, 2003 expose (based on research by my wife Karen and me, and my outreach to the Enquirer in 2002):
In order to promote the recent choking rescue story, Episcopal Retirement Services prepared this promotional package of videos and photographs and a downloadable copy of my father's 2014 memoir, Heimlich's Maneuvers:
My father included no mention of his alleged 2001 Banker's Club choking rescue.
In other words, my father punk'd the Enquirer, my brother Phil, and Episcopal Retirement Services.
My father may not be the master scammer he used to be -- the Banker's Club turned out to be an exploding cigar -- but that's not too shabby for a 96-year-old.
######
Big hat tip to McKinight's editor James M. Berklan for his lively column today, This lifesaving coincidence definitely makes you swallow deeply, which steered me to the ERS promo kit. Don't miss reading his skeptical review of the Deupree House event, today's National Heimlich Maneuver Day festivities, and my brother Phil's involvement.
My favorite line? A better-timed rescue P.T. Barnum couldn't have orchestrated.
Here's Phil's bemused, chin-rubbing take on the coincidence:
