Dr Henry Heimlich used his Heimlich manoeuvre, aged 96.

Dr Henry Heimlich’s technique for dislodging food or objects caught in people’s throats has been credited with saving thousands of lives around the world since he invented it in 1974 – but he had never once had cause to use it in an emergency situation himself. In 2016, however, the retired chest surgeon encountered a female resident at his retirement home in Cincinnati who was choking at the dinner table.

Without hesitation, Heimlich spun her around in her chair so he could get behind her and administered several upward thrusts with a fist below the chest until the piece of meat she was choking on popped out of her throat and she could breathe again.

Heimlich lived in a senior assisted living centre in the city, where he and other residents have their own apartments but get together for meals in a communal dining room.

Fellow resident 87-year-old Patty Ris, who was quite new to the facility, sat down near Heimlich for dinner when she suddenly began choking on a piece of hamburger meat. A member of staff was heading over to attend to the emergency, when Heimlich calmly stepped in.  “I did the Heimlich Manoeuvre – of course,” Heimlich said. “She was going to die if she wasn’t treated. I did it, and a piece of food with some bone in it flew out of her mouth.”

History of the Heimlich Manoeuvre

Standard practice for dealing with choking prior to 1974 was to thump the afflicted person on the back. But Heimlich argued then, and still does, that that can force the obstruction further into the gullet, not dislodge it. He worked on various theories until he finally came up with the procedure in 1974, designed for use by the general public, not just medical personnel, of putting one’s arms around the casualty and exerting upward abdominal thrusts, just above the navel and below the ribs, with the linked hands in a fist, until the obstruction is dislodged.

In June 1974 Heimlich published preliminary findings from his experiments with anti-choking techniques in a US medical journal. Newspapers around the US quickly began picking up on examples where readers, had caught word of Heimlich’s article and had tried the manoeuvre on choking casualties, with successful results. He discovered that it was It was “the flow of air as in a small hurricane, not pressure that carried the object away.” 

Dr Heimlich died not long after he saved the life of his friend. He had a long and successful career in medicine always looking to find the cause and come up with a solution to a difficult medical problem. He also invented a ‘flutter valve’ which allows air and blood to drain from the chest cavity in order to allow a compressed lung to re-expand.

How often do people die from choking?

Between 175 and 200 people die a year in the UK from choking on food according to the Office for National Statistics. Choking is effectively blocking the airway so we need to act quickly to clear the blockage.

What is the up to date method to help someone is choking?

Today, we encourage treating someone who is choking in 3 stages: 1. Ask them to cough it up using all the power of their diaphram to force the object out; 2. back slaps to force air up through the airway to dislodge the blockage and 3, the abdoninal thrusts (or the Heimlich Manoeuvre!) by forcing air from the stomach are up through the airway. Today the abdominal thrusts are done from the first aider’s hip bone are rather than their stomach, giving more purchase to the thrust. All these techniques work with air to force the object out, something Dr Heimlich understood very well.

Read our previous BLOG for choking first aid advice  or watch our First Aid VIDEO on dealing with choking in an adult or dealing with a choking child or infant.