Choking Treatment
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If you or someone near you begins choking, have someone call for emergency help and go to the choking person's aid quickly. The age of the individual, and whether or not other people are available to help, will determine the measures you must take to relieve choking. Perform the appropriate procedure as outlined below. Do not stop until the foreign material is expelled, or the person begins coughing, breathing, and making normal sounds on his or her own or another person can take over for you, or medical help arrives.
Standard Heimlich Maneuver
- Stand or kneel behind the individual, wrapping your arms around his or her waist.
- Make a fist with one hand and clasp your other hand over your fist. Position the thumb side of your fist against the person's abdomen, just above the navel and below the rib cage.
- Use a quick, forceful upward push of your fist into the person's abdomen to force air up through the windpipe.
- Continue doing these thrusts until the person expels the foreign material.
One-Person Variant
If you are alone and find that you have ingested material that you can neither swallow nor cough up, and speaking/breathing are impossible, you can perform a modified version of the standard Heimlich maneuver on yourself as follows:
- Find a stable, blunt object somewhat below chest height-for example, a chair back, countertop edge, or fence post.
- Place the soft part of your upper abdomen, just below the breastbone, against the object, and relax the area as much as possible.
- Without trying to breathe, thrust your abdomen against the object to rapidly increase pressure under the diaphragm, much as in the standard Heimlich maneuver.
- Continue doing these thrusts until you expel the foreign material.
- Choking : It provides medical information about choking disease including causes, symptoms, etc.