Almost died yesterday

DisneyOma

DIS Veteran
Joined
Jul 27, 2015
Went out to eat with my family, choked on my first bite of a steak tip and tried to get my husband's attention. Whacked his shoulder, whacked my throat, he froze. Luckily, 25 year old daughter sitting on my other side remembered what she was taught in the 4th grade, gave me the Heimlich, and saved my life!

Three points:

1. People panic and don't know how to react sometimes, don't hold it against them (husband)
2. If we had Common Core back then, my daughter wouldn't have been taught by her 4th grade teacher how to save my life!
3. The steak tips at an old favorite restaurant are really tough and grizzly now!
 


Wow!! So glad you are ok!

My high school freshman daughter just learned the Heimlich as well as was certified in adult and infant CPR in school this year. This is just at our regular public high school. I don’t know if she could adequately provide aid in a crisis, though.
 


Went out to eat with my family, choked on my first bite of a steak tip and tried to get my husband's attention. Whacked his shoulder, whacked my throat, he froze. Luckily, 25 year old daughter sitting on my other side remembered what she was taught in the 4th grade, gave me the Heimlich, and saved my life!

Three points:

1. People panic and don't know how to react sometimes, don't hold it against them (husband)
2. If we had Common Core back then, my daughter wouldn't have been taught by her 4th grade teacher how to save my life!
3. The steak tips at an old favorite restaurant are really tough and grizzly now!
 
Wow! Glad your daughter didn't freeze up and was able to help you. It's a good thing to refresh everyone's memory about all kinds of CPR measures at least once a year. You are lucky that your daughter retained what she learned in 4'th grade! Someone was watching over you yesterday!!!
 
Thankfully it worked out, must have been scary. You are right about staying calm in a situation like that.
 
Went out to eat with my family, choked on my first bite of a steak tip and tried to get my husband's attention. Whacked his shoulder, whacked my throat, he froze. Luckily, 25 year old daughter sitting on my other side remembered what she was taught in the 4th grade, gave me the Heimlich, and saved my life!

Three points:

1. People panic and don't know how to react sometimes, don't hold it against them (husband)
2. If we had Common Core back then, my daughter wouldn't have been taught by her 4th grade teacher how to save my life!
3. The steak tips at an old favorite restaurant are really tough and grizzly now!
I hope you picked up your daughters tab!!!
 
Glad you’re okay!

Use the International Sign if Choking if it ever happens again. If might get someone’s attention faster! Hopefully you won’t have to worry about that again.
 
How scary! And so lucky that someone understood and jumped into action!

I had to save a choking 4 year old who was in my pre-school class once - it has by far been the scariest moment of my entire life. He is 19 now, and I still get shaky and panicky when I think about those moments and the "what-ifs" - what if I didn't understand that he was choking? What if I had forgotten what to do? What if it didn't work!

Thank goodness the grape popped out after two thrusts, but we were both traumatized and cried our eyes out on the floor as I held him afterward. The call to his mother could have been so, so different, but thank goodness I was able to tell her he was OK.

Choking is silent - kind of like drowning. TV and movies tend to make it seem like there is a flurry of activity and noise/splashing/flailing around, but, at least in the instance I was involved in, the person was absolutely silent. To this day, I have no idea how I just *knew* he was choking - and to be completely honest, it took me about 20-30 seconds to realize it - he was a quiet kid to begin with and he was just standing there not talking or answering my questions - he had come up behind me and I was half-talking to him while I was busy with another kid, and it took a while for me to realize that he wasn't answering and I turned around to look at him. He had huge tears in his eyes and a panicked look that sent my alarms signal up. But 30 seconds is a long time when someone can't breathe and cannot communicate properly.

*And we had a rule that no grapes were allowed in school without being cut into quarters. The parents were pretty good about this, but the boy's older tween sister made his lunch that day and just threw in a bunch of whole grapes. I didn't catch it either, when he opened his lunchbox. I was much more vigilant after that!
 
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That's so scary! Glad you're OK.
My husbands Aunt passed away in 2016- she actually choked on a piece of steak, and was by herself. Her husband found her when he got home, but it was too late. Just devastating for the family.
 

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