Dr. Henry Heimlich Finally Uses His Maneuver At 96

Dr. Henry Heimlich, of "maneuver" fame, finally put into practice his eponymous life-saving technique after inventing it 42 years years ago.

Heimlich was at a Cincinnati retirement home, according to several news reports of the incident, when he heard a woman choking. Patty Ris, an 87-year-old resident of the home, was choking on a piece of hamburger.

So the 96-year-old Heimlich rushed to action, using the technique he made famous in the 1970s, and the food was dislodged.

“When I used it, and she recovered quickly, it made me appreciate how wonderful it has been to be able to save all those lives," he told USA Today.

Heimlich claims it's the first time he's used it outside of demonstrations.

“She was going to die if she wasn’t treated," he told the Guardian. "I did it, and a piece of food with some bone in it flew out of her mouth.”

It's unclear when the irony hit Heimlich, or if it ever did. (It's also not clear why a hamburger had a bone in it.)

• Click here to read more from The Cincinnati Enquirer.
• Click here to read more from the Guardian.

In the early 1970s, the accepted method of saving a choking person involved hitting someone's back, but researchers said that could cause the object to get lodged even further down.

So Heimlich, then a surgeon in Cincinnati, decided to develop a better way.

Practicing with beagle dogs, Heimlich developed his "maneuver" — putting the thumb side of your fist under the person's lower abdomen, grabbing the fist with your other hand and thrusting upward.

When he found a journal willing to publish the technique in 1974, Heimlich had one condition — it had to go out in the press as well. A Chicago health writer with a syndicated column picked it up, and it spread rapidly. When people read about it — and started saving lives because of it — it became standard medical practice.

Untold numbers have been saved by his mind's invention. Now one more has been saved by his hands.

• Read more about the history of the Heimlich maneuver here.

Image via TenarAiuola, Wikimedia commons