Historical November 1976 health reporting. Dates, fees, recommendations and first-aid instructions are reproduced from the original issue, not current medical advice or service announcements.
Every month, the People’s Clinic tries to do a little “health education” via the pages of THE PAPER. With Thanksgiving and Christmas coming up, the subject of movable feasts…and choking…comes to mind.
Small children usually choke over swallowing some small object, (remember our lessons on “out of sight, out of mind, out of mouth”); while adults more commonly choke on food, often due to improper chewing due to badly fitting dentures, etc. Often the choking victim is thought to be suffering from a heart attack or stroke. There is one way to tell:’A stroking victim cannot breathe or make a sound, while a stroke or heart attack victims usually can breathe and talk.
When someone chokes, time is of the essence! The first thing NOT TO DO is pound the victim on the back, which will probably make him/her inhale sharply and draw the obstruction further down! If you can see the obstruction, you can use a napkin (or something like, it to improve the grip) and PULL the tongue out as far as possible (and we mean pull!, which will move the obstruction up further, and the first and second fingers like tweezers to pull it out. Restaurants often are equipped with a plastic thingummy called a “Chokesaver”, but everyone has fingers and when a person’s life is at stake, dont be finicky!
If you can’t see the obstruction, then you can try the “Heimlich maneuver”, which is not named for the fictional detective, but for a doctor in Cincinnati. To do this, you get in back of the victim, wrap your arms around, clasp your hands into fists together, and jerk forcefully back just below the ribcage. This forces the diaphragm up, compresses air in the lungs, and expels the object. According to the good Dr. Heimlich, there is always enough residual air trapped in the lungs to make this method work.
Best of all, of course, is to chew properly and swallow slowly, or: Don’t Gulp the Goodies!
St. Louis Health Division
Originally published in The Paper, November 1976.
Read this article in the original newspaper issue.
Archival transcription note: Printed A stroking victim and some parenthetical punctuation require editorial review; not silently rewritten.
Original source: SD_Times1976_11.pdf, printed page(s) 5; PDF page(s) 5.
