Another Heimlich story. I was around 13, my sister was about 2. My mother left us in the car while she was shopping (this was in 1979 or so, when such things were more common). My sister was eating Lifesavers, and started to choke. I did the Heimlich maneuver on her while she was wheezing for about a minute. I’ll never forget the look of terror in her eyes. Finally the candy flew out of her mouth and she started screaming. By the time my mother got back to the car, both of us were crying. It took me 5 minutes to calm down enough to tell my mother what had happened.
Of course, the next day my mother gave my sister Lifesavers again. She was always a good one for sticking her head in the sand and pretending a problem didn’t exist.
When I was 10 years old, my grandmother was staying with us over Christmas break to watch me and my sister (age 5) while my parents were at work. She was sitting in a chair watching TV when suddenly she made kind of a strange face, slumped down a bit, and just stopped breathing. My dad was a part-time EMT at the time, so I knew to check for a pulse – she had none that I could find – but I hadn’t learned CPR (and doubtful that I could have done it properly anyway). I called 911 and sent my sister over to the neighbors’ to get her out of the way. Then I called my mom at work to tell her and went out to let the paramedics in.
Grandma lived, but she was never quite the same after that. Her mental abilities gradually went downhill and for the rest of her life she pretty much sat in a chair and stared.
I’ve saved a few people, but it’s kinda unfair, since it’s my job and all.
The two that stick out are;
going into a apt filling with smoke from a stove fire, searching the place, found the resident asleep on the couch, forgot he was cooking. My partner and I shook him up and dragged him out.
Did a heimlich on a woman at a restaurant, who then tried to give me all the money in her purse, which was a large handful of bills, which I declined. She did insist on a gift cert. from the restaurant, which I gladly accepted.
I can’t be 100% certain, but I might have. When I was about 18 my dad was driving us on a winding mountain road when the car developed an airlock and stalled on the road.
So we sat there for a few seconds in the middle of the road while my father tried to restart the car, and then I looked out the back window and realized we’d just come around a blind curve and whoever else was traveling on that road wouldn’t see us till he hit us.
I yelled to everyone to get out of the car and then jumped out. My mother, brother, and sister followed. (My father still sat there trying to start the stupid thing.)
Luckily no one was driving directly behind us and we managed to get the car off onto what little embankment there was and then warn other drivers coming up the road to be careful.
So maybe I saved our lives and that of the unfortunate people who might have hit us if we just stayed there in the road.
My sister has had asthma ever since we were about five years old. One day she was walking on her junior college campus, when she noticed a girl who appeared to be having a panic attack. She was fumbling through her purse and panting heavily, and was starting to look really scared. Some people started to notice and asked if she was OK, did she need anything. All she could do was shake her head no. She appeared unable to talk. No one could figure out what was wrong. So my sister walked up to her and asked her if she had asthma. The girl nodded yes. The girl had forgotten her inhaler and was having a MAJOR attack. My sister told someone to call 911 and then offered her inhaler, which the girl tried to use but was so weak she couldn’t operate it herself. So my sister had to administer the inhaler dose and tried to calm the girl while someone else called 911. If my sister hadn’t figured out what was happening, the girl would have been unconscious before anyone even called 911.
It’s so hard to say if something you’ve done actually saved lives or if everyone would’ve pulled out of it anyway.
I’ve posted before about a boat accident I had about 2 and half years ago. I was in a eight (a 60 foot long rowing shell that holds eight rowers and a coxswain, the steerer) and we were going full-pressure on a particularly dark stretch of the river (it was January when it gets dark in the early evening). I heard shouting behind me (I was in the front of the boat facing backwards) and I turn to see a very large sight seeing pontoon boat (the boat holds around a hundred people) about fifteen feet away heading directly for us. We tried to stop the boat by “checking” the oars (turning them perpendicular to the boat) but we were about to go under the pontoon boat (we were directly between the two pontoons). I turned in my seat and took the impact with my shoulder and butt (very large bruises) and wound up breaking my foot.
All the girls in my boat still tell me I saved their lives and introduce me that way. I dunno, maybe someone else in that seat would have done the same thing and who’s to say what would have happened. But maybe that counts as saving a life…
Two possibilities:
My step-sister began to drown when swimming (or, rather,not) in a backyard pool. I jumped in and had brought her to the surface.
At a wild party during my younger days, a girl passed out by the pool and was choking on her own tongue. People were either drunk and oblivious or just plain freaking out, and I jumped in and made some quick decisions that may have saved her life.
As a point of interest, I haven’t seen my stepsister in more than ten years, and I don’t think I ever knew the other girl’s name.
I used the heimlich on a guy during a party at my house.
Although I may have saved his life, I wonder how things would have gone if he had just choked to death. Sseems kind of harsh, but he raped my wifes friend a few weeks later.
I dunno, maybe someone else in that seat would have done the same thing and who’s to say what would have happened. But maybe that counts as saving a life…