My fellow bloggers at Raising Ladders and The Fire Critic beat me to Part 1 of this highly educational life saving series where CPR is being taught in a way that surely will grab the public’s attention (the video below). Above is Part 2, featuring the Heimlich Maneuver.
My friend Frank Field, who in 1971 first put Henry Heimlich on WNBC-TV in New York explaining this then brand new technique to save a choking victim, probably didn’t have the advantage of models like this. Even without being so bold, Frank almost lost his job just for sharing this way to save a life with his TV audience (some doubting medical professionals had the ear of top NBC brass).
Frank lobbied hard to get the State of New York to require restaurants to post instructions. Years later sportscaster Warner Wolf used the Heimlich Maneuver to save Frank who was choking in a Manhattan restaurant. When Frank asked Warner where he learned the procedure, Warner told him, “From watching you on TV”.
At 88, Frank is still working hard on life saving issues, pitching his wonderful video Fire Is to a wider audience. Through the years he received many letters that his work in promoting the Heimlich Maneuver saved lives.
Now maybe the two people in this video will someday hear that lives were saved because of their demonstration to a new generation on the Internet.
Also on STATter911 …
- For second time in 12 days Omaha, Nebraska firefighter saves a life. In both cases he was off duty. – January 21, 2012
- Raw video: FDNY 5th-alarm in Queens. – May 4, 2011
- Early raw video: Newark, New Jersey firefighters make multiple rescues from fire escapes at 3rd-alarm. – January 13, 2011
- Is Spiderman needed when you can just open a window? Another FDNY – NYPD ESU rift. – April 14, 2012
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Cute video, but the choking rescue instructions are contradicted by current American Red Cross (ARC) guidelines. ARC recommends first performing backblows; if the backblows fail to remove the obstruction, proceed to abdominal thrusts. (The ARC no longer calls the procedure “the Heimlich maneuver.”): http://bit.ly/9jDdgA
there is something seriously wrong if we need to make videos like this for people to care about saving someones life and we are only making the sitution worse to get them to care
For some strange reason, my local Red Cross chapter won’t let me use these videos in class.
I guess they’re American Heart Association videos?
what is wrong with the world when AHA and ARC cannot agree on how to perform this procedure?
Did everyone miss the last second of these videos? They’re produced by a lingeire company, folks.
“The Heimlich manoeuvre” (radio documentary), Australian Broadcasting, Jul7 27,2009: http://tinyurl.com/m3nr3n
‘In the early 1970s a new procedure for treating choking victims burst on to the scene in the United States and soon it was famous around the world. The procedure was called the Heimlich manoeuvre, named after the man who created it — Dr Henry Heimlich. It has never been used in Australia. Despite the claims of the extremely charismatic Dr Heimlich, Australian resuscitation experts believe that there isn’t enough scientific evidence to support its use. So how does a medical procedure become so widely adopted without any serious scientific evidence?’