[Coco] Get to know your neighbors, folks

[Robert Gault]

John W. Linville wrote:
> On Tue, Jun 02, 2009 at 07:33:50PM -0400, Arthur Flexser wrote:
>> On 6/2/09, Torsten Dittel <Torsten at dittel.info> wrote:
>>
>>>  Didn't the American Heart Association warn against the use of the so-called
>>> "Heimlich Maneuver" as unproven and dangerous, due to its risk of vomiting
>>> leading to aspiration?!?
>>>
>> According to the wikipedia entry on Heimlich, that warning only
>> applies to using the Heimlich in drowning rescue attempts.  For
>> conscious people who are choking, the American Red Cross now
>> recommends 5 back blows and, if that fails, 5 abdominal thrusts, the
>> latter being the now-preferred term for Heimlich maneuvers.
> 
> And when I was in high school, we were told to _never_EVER_ strike
> someone who is choking on the back...  Sometimes I think being a
> medicine is like weather forecasting...
> 
> John

That is simple to explain. If a person is sitting or standing and you 
slap them on the back, whatever might be lodged in the trachea could 
just drop down further under the influence of gravity and get stuck even 
worse.
Conversely if you could get them standing on their head, then a slap on 
the back could dislodge the blockage into the mouth.

What needs to be done is compress the lungs so that increased internal 
air pressure blows out the blockage. That can be accomplished by any 
method that compresses the lung cavity. The compression will be more 
effective when it is rapid rather than slow.