My apologies if anyone is offended by the word “fat”.
Is performing the Heimlich maneuver successfully on obese people difficult? Is there some modification to the technique which would make it more effective on people who have excessive padding? I’d think that a lot of fat would make the Heimlich maneuver useless, even if the rescuer could still get his/her arms around the victim.
The method that is usually recommended is the abdominal thrust. Sort of like CPR only a thrust to the upper abdomen. I sure there is some sites that will show it but I am too lazy to find it.
Sorry for the slight hijack but I wanted to share this. It is harder to perform many, many medical procedures on obese people. A short list of those includes:
Getting IV access
All surgery
Advanced imaging like CT scan or MRI
Nuclear medicine scans for heart disease
Measuring blood pressure
CPR
Intubation (artificial airway insertion)
Dosing some medications
Putting in Foley (urinary bladder) catheters
Spinal taps
This list is by no means exhaustive. I’d guess given the physics of the chest /abdominal wall in an obese person, the Heimlich would be less successful.