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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.”

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.”

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.[Page down for graphics.]

...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.”

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.”

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.

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.

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. 

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.

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.

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."

...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.