Heimlich Maneuver Anyone?

I've often wondered what it would be like to suddenly find yourself unable to breath and then not be able to do anything about it. Watching movies and such with people drowning or getting choked is a little freaky, but each time I see that I always think, "What would be going through your mind at that moment?"

This afternoon I discovered exactly what would go someone's mind. I discovered what would go through my mind to be more specific. It goes something like this, "Oh my gosh I'm going to die. Oh my gosh I'm going to die. Oh my gosh I'm going to die."

I woke up nice and early again today. Somewhere around 6:00 in the morning. Instead of rolling around trying to sleep I decided I might as well wake up and start getting some e-mails and writing done. While up nice and early I decided to try and plan my day out. Part of the day included having lunch with Amy, which I was really looking forward to.

My mind was anywhere but on the task at hand as I drove downtown. I took the wrong way a few times and finally ended up on the street where Amy's building is. But there was no parking anywhere. Even the parking garage was full. So I had to loop around and park underground. Lovely.

I then walked through the half foot deep slush and made it to Amy's office. Off we go. We decide to go to a nice little Greek restaurant that is in her building so we don't have to go outside and get all mucky and both order a Gyros or a donair as us white people call it.

Mmmm... donair.... I love donair. But does donair love me? I'm not too sure at this point. Amy and I were talking and all of a sudden I feel that something is not right. What I just swallowed is not going down. In fact it is somewhat lodged in the middle of my throat. I sit there feeling a little weird and suddenly realize that I can't breath at all. Like AT ALL. I can't cough, I can't talk and I most definately can't breath and since this thing is inside of me I can't get it out.

Panic immediately hits and I don't know what to do. I would ask Amy for help, but like I said... my wind-pipe was somewhat obstructed at that moment. How do I tell Amy "EMERGENCY, I'M CHOKING" via sign language? I don't know!!!!

I stand up and start to puke. That is lovely. Normally anything to do with puke is the worse thing ever to me, but at this point I didn't care. I want everything inside of me out. Why? Because I still can't breath. When I stand up things start to turn red (which was interesting) and everything starts to spin. I'm pointing like mad at the servers to try and get them over because I know that I'm going to need help getting this piece of evil death gyro out of my body. I'm assuming that since they are serving staff they will know what to do... especially since I feel like I'm about to black out.

Never in my life have I felt fear like that.

So two of the servers come over and this one guy starts hitting my back, but that doesn't do anything. I've somehow managed to get a little air in, but like I said... if this carried on my longer... well... I don't know what would have happened. This guy's amazing training kicks in and I guess he tried to give me the heimlich. I wanted to turn around and hit the guy... and he did was give me a gentle nudging in the gutts. I've had more severe hugs then that.

What was going through my mind at that precise moment was, "Good God man, heave like you've never heaved before! Go buck wild!!" But of course if I were to yell that at the man, I would need to have been able to breath and at this moment... still no breathing.

So Amy is praying furiously, this man waits to see what his gentle nudge did and I'm trying to fight the reflex to gag and swallow or beat this man in fury and rage. I was thinking, "Oh crap... we're going to have to call the Ambulance. I'm going to pass out. I hope it gets here fast enough."

I found if I tried really, really hard I could fight the gag reflex and by doing this I could very, very slowly breath. Then the guy did make one good suggestion, "Let's go to the bathroom and you can stick a finger down your throat. Maybe that will help." I personally didn't know how sticking more things down my throat was going to help at this particular moment, but I wasn't really in the position to begin a discussion on that point. So I gathered myself, grabbed a napkin in case everything came out again and we somehow walked to the bathroom. And wouldn't you know it? When we did that the bite of evil death gyro when down.

So I basically stood in the bathroom, shaking like a leaf terrified beyond anything I've ever felt before. I'm serious... I've had a lot of crazy experiences in my life that have made me wonder what my physical outcome would be, but nothing... NOTHING has ever come this close.

Thankfully, Amy was in the bathroom with me so we stood there for a while totally freaked out and then did what anyone would expect us to do. We burst into hysterical laughter.

We sat down again and I tried to eat some more. Every bite was horrible, only because I was so scared. But we did manage to laugh like idiots the rest of the time. Come on... how often does this happen?

Amy and I then drew up a contingency plan in case this were ever to happen again. The plan goes like this: Wail on the person choking so hard that the blockage doesn't just come up, but goes flying across the room. We done care about bruising or pain afterwords, just heimlich like nobody has ever heimliched before!

I think we're going to enroll ourselves in first aid courses as well. We need to be prepaired for the future! hahaha...

So... I'm not dead. But I have come close to that realm once again. The list grows longer. I'll leave you with a picture of the evil death gyro. I brought in home with me as a souveneir.