Saviour of choking victims dies
HENRY Heimlich – the medical maverick who came up with a manoeuvre credited with saving thousands of choking victims but who damaged his standing as a proponent of the curative powers of malaria – died on Saturday at the age of 96.
Heimlich, a doctor who developed a life-saving technique to dislodge airway blockages, died at Christ Hospital in Cincinnati of complications from a massive heart attack he suffered on Monday, his family said.
A thoracic surgeon who often feuded with the established medical community, Heimlich said the manoeuvre named after him had already saved more than 100 000 lives. He claimed to have used it himself last May on another resident of the Cincinnati retirement home where he lived.
“It made me appreciate how wonderful it has been to be able to save all those lives,” he once told the Cincinnati Enquirer.
Heimlich came up with the ground-breaking technique in 1974 after reading about the high rate of deaths in restaurants that first were attributed to heart attacks, but later found to have been caused by diners choking on food.
The popular wisdom at the time called for slapping the back of person struggling with an obstruction of the passage to the lungs.
But Heimlich, who was then at Jewish Hospital in Cincinnati, believed the back slaps could force the blockage deeper.
The Heimlich Manoeuvre calls for the rescuer to stand behind the choking victim, apply the thumb-side of a fist to a spot just under the diaphragm and between the lungs. By pushing sharply on that spot, a surge of air from the lungs would then expel the blockage.
In 1984, Heimlich was given the prestigious Lasker Award for public service. — Reuters