So the spouse and I were out having lunch at KFC a couple of days ago. We’re just sitting there and minding our own business when suddenly we started hearing strange noises. An old guy sitting at a table near us was wheezing and making sounds like he couldn’t breathe. I got up to investigate, and somebody said “he’s choking!”
Suddenly everybody was standing up, but just milling around. Somebody said “do the Heimlich!” but nobody moved. The guy was fairly big and kind of over in a corner, so I wasn’t sure I’d be able to hustle him around, so I shifted into Bossy Mode. I pointed at the spouse and said, “You! Do it!” That was all it took–he moved over there, got behind the guy and put his arms around him. “Too high,” said I and one other person. Spouse moved his grip down a bit. “In and up,” I told him, and he did it. Something brown and white popped out of the guy’s mouth and then he could breathe again. It was scary and intense and we felt so good afterward that we were able to help the guy. It was about this point one of the employees came over with a phone and asked the guy if he was okay–he said he was, and he seemed fine at that point so they didn’t call an ambulance or anything. The guy actually went off to clean himself up and then came back and ate his lunch.
We talked to him a little bit on the way out–he was an old Vietnam vet named Dave. I was so proud of the spouse–he told me later he was scared he’d do it wrong, but I told him if the guy’s dying it’s better to do something than nothing. He also said (and I shared this belief) that he was waiting for one of the employees to do it. The employees were pretty much useless throughout the whole thing.
Felt really good to be a small part of helping the guy. I know I’d have tried it myself if the spouse wasn’t there, but he was and everything worked out. And it took us about half an hour before the adrenaline wore off.
Excellent job. And I guess you’ve already figured out the solution to the general crowd problem of no one wanting to be the decision maker or doer.
Honestly, the general human tendencies which are bad in crowds/emergencies can be overcome with a little explanation ahead of time. I know most states have human health as a required early high school block. There should be at least a chapter in there on things like this, the Milgram experiment, etc. Not science/history/deep psychology, just basic simple instruction: people are often like this without thinking, just do this in this situation!
Yeah, I’ve always been kind of a take-charge type, assuming I have any idea what I’m doing. I was just glad to see that didn’t desert me in a crisis. I’ll usually hang back long enough to make sure somebody else isn’t going to take charge, but if nobody does then I figure at least I can organize even if I can’t help directly.
Way to go!
Back in undergrad, I recall reading in one of my psychology classes that it’s actually not unusual that when a GROUP of people witness an emergency, everyone just stands around thinking “Somebody else will do something” and nobody feels personally responsible for helping so nothing gets done, whereas if an individual person witnesses some emergency on their own, they’re more likely to intervene because they feel more responsible for doing something when they’re the only one there. You did the right thing by “going into bossy mode” to make your SO feel personally responsible for doing something.
Unfortunately, from what my SO who has worked in fast food tells me, they are given absolutely no training on topics like what to do if someone is choking. It would make sense if people who work in a place that serves food knew how to handle a choking victim, right? But I guess they have such turnover that they don’t think it’s worth covering things like that.
It’s quite possible that if you and your SO hadn’t been there nobody would have done anything except call an ambulance after the guy collapsed, and the guy would have died by the time they got there. Thank goodness you guys stepped up!
My friend Heimliched me in a restaurant last year. Her first try was a little gentle, but on the second she really yanked, and it worked like a charm. It all happened so fast that no one around us realized what happened.
