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According to the organization's website, "The (American) Red Cross has been the go-to source for more than a century for information, skills and confidence to act in an emergency, at home, in school and in the workplace."

Based on the following, sometimes they're "the don't go-to source."

This starts with my March 14 item, Punk'd by my 94-year-old father, Chicago talk radio host tells listeners to "forget the Red Cross" choking rescue guidelines, about a March 12, 2014 segment on an affiliate station of WGN Chicago.

Here's a clip I stitched together in which my father convinces talk show veteran Jonathon "Johnny B" Brandmeier and his second banana to dump on the American Red Cross because they recommend backblows as an effective treatment for choking.

One fact my father failed to mention? Every leading first aid organization in the world recommends backblows as an effective treatment for choking.

As you can hear, Brandmeier and his banana got peeled.



For a follow-up item, I wanted to know if the show intended to invite a Red Cross representative to respond.

Todd Manley (source)

Look what I received Friday morning:

Mr. Heimlich,

I did not realize you hadn't been copied on a response from the Red Cross on this topic. I will forward that to you. Their spokesperson has indicated there is no need for such an interview. Thanks for your concern.

Sincerely,

Todd Manley
VP/Content & Programming
Tribune Radio

Then he sent me this:

From: Don Lauritzen <Don.Lauritzen@redcross.org>
Date: April 11, 2014 at 10:56:17 AM CDT
To: Todd Manley <tmanley@wgnradio.com>;
Cc: Martha Carlos <Martha.Carlos@redcross.org>
Subject: RE: media inquiry-I don't think you were copied on the response

Mr. Manley:

We’re reaching out to you regarding Peter Heimlich’s recent email.

Mr. Heimlich does not represent the Red Cross and has no affiliation with our organization. We have not requested that a Red Cross representative be invited to appear as a guest.

Our American Red Cross Greater Chicago Region communications team (headed by Martha Carlos, chief communications officer) and our national office want to continue the excellent relationship we have with your organization and provide any support that we can.

Please contact us if you have any questions.

Thank you.

Don Lauritzen
Officer, Preparedness and Health and Safety Services Communications

American Red Cross
National Headquarters
431 18th Street NW
Washington, DC 20006
202.303.4775 (p)
202.303.6604 (f)
don.lauritzen@redcross.org
@rockondon1
redcross.org

I never asked Lauritzen or anyone at the Red Cross to get involved.

And give me a stack of bibles on which to place my mitt, I swear I've never represented myself as a representative of his organization.

Unless I'm missing something, here's what this looks like.

1) Without informing me, Lauritzen -- a communications executive at Red Cross national headquarters -- interjected himself and the Red Cross into my media inquiry to WGN.

2) Without being invited by the station, Lauritzen preemptively volunteered that the Red Cross had no interest in any potential opportunity to provide potentially lifesaving first aid information (and to promote his organization) via one of Chicago's prime media outlets.

3) Todd Manley at Tribune Radio used the Red Cross's lack of interest as a fig leaf to not provide accurate, potentially lifesaving first aid information to his station's audience.

If there's any logic here, it zoomed past me.

How does Lauritzen's action benefit his employer? Isn't that Job One for a communications rep?

And how does Manley's decision benefit his station's listeners? 

Logic aside, the Red Cross and Tribune Radio clearly got what they wanted -- to avoid providing accurate, potentially lifesaving information to the public.

As for me, thanks to Manley forwarding me Lauritzen's e-mail, I got the item you're reading.

It looks like the only losers in this exchange are Tribune Radio's audience.

Oh, screw 'em. If they're interested, let 'em get the information somewhere else.

WGN radio host Jonathon Brandmeier (source)

My father's never gotten proper credit as a master media manipulator who for decades used his charm to spin uninformed journalists.

As I told reporter Paul Teetor of the LA Weekly:

"My father is such a brilliant promoter, he could teach P.T. Barnum a few tricks."

But as a result of the dozens of media reports that exposed him as a career scammer -- for example, check out Chuck Goudie's tough ABC7 Chicago expose that aired over seven years ago -- presumably it's gotten more difficult for my father to find marks.

Also, who would consider my father -- a 94-year-old with a history of making delusional claims, who hasn't held a medical license since 2002, and who lives in a retirement community -- to be a medical authority?

Enter WGN Chicago talk show host Jonathon Brandmeier.*

Check out these clips I stitched together from Are you choking?! Dr. Heimlich is here, a March 12, 2014 interview Brandmeier and his second banana conducted with my father (with my brother Phil Heimlich on hand). In keeping with the show's yuckfest approach, I added clown horns where I spliced the clips.  




Briefly, after falling for my father's long-discredited hokum that rescuers should never use back blows to revive a choking victim, Brandmeier then imprudently advises WGN listeners to "forget the Red Cross" recommendations on how to respond to a choking emergency.

While you're at it, forget liability as well.

By the way, my father's claim that the American Red Cross is the only organization to recommend back blows is false. On the contrary, virtually every major first aid organization, including the Canadian Red Cross and the UK's St John Ambulance recommends performing back blows as the first response to choking.

In other words, Dr. Maneuver is clueless about his own claimed field of expertise.

And just after the 2:00 mark, my father recommends performing "the Heimlich maneuver" on choking infants. That treatment has never been recommended by any legitimate first aid agency because it may result in serious harm.

What if a WGN listener follows his advice and hurts a baby?

That's one of the questions I'll be asking the Tribune Company -- they own WGN.

They also own the Chicago Tribune which a few weeks ago published a well-researched first-person article by Ian Mitchell that included:

In a conscious choking emergency, where a person can't cough, speak or breathe, the Red Cross procedure is to ask the person if he or she is choking and get consent to give aid.

Then administer five strong back blows between the shoulder blades with the heel of your hand, "as forceful as you deem necessary to save that person's life," (Red Cross instructor Gabriele) Romanucci said.

The back blows are a less-invasive technique that might help clear the airway, so the Red Cross advises trying them first, he said.

"If that technique is not successful, then we would go to the abdominal thrust (aka Heimlich maneuver)," he said.

"Less-invasive" = Less potentially harmful.

What sort of potential harm?

See Case reports of complications from “the Heimlich maneuver,” a list I compiled of about 40 medical journal articles.

Finally, there's this clip in which Brandmeier & his sidekick guffaw about the hilarious concept:

What if the great Dr. Heimlich himself actually performed "the Heimlich" on a choking victim? Wouldn't that be a hoot?

When Brandmeier asks if that ever happened, my father replied, "I have not been in that position."




Punk'd by a nonagenarian!

Click here for the full article and other news outlets that ran with the story (BBC, New Yorker, etc.)

* CORRECTION (4/18/14): The audio of the interview is posted on the website of WGN-FM, so I assumed it aired on that station. After posting my item, I was informed by Tribune Radio Vice President Todd Manley that, in fact, the show aired on sister station WGWG-LP, 87.7FM. As of today, there's no indication of that on the website, hence my error.