Yeah, you should never stick anything (your finger, a straw, etc..) down someone's throat if they're choking. That's a terrible idea. The Heimlich maneuver is the best chance of dislodging the obstruction. In the military, they taught us an alternate method of performing the Heimlich which involved bending the person over the top part of a chair. This is mainly used for overweight people who you can't reach all the way around with your arms. It also results in a lot more force being applied to the chest, so it's easy to crack a person's ribs.
According to this site , using your finger is one thing you can try to remove the obstruction if the victim becomes unconscious and only after the heimlich has failed. The only reason I mentioned a straw was I thought it might provide more reach but maybe that is not such a good idea. If it was a slurpee straw with a scoop on the end, then maybe you could scoop away the obstruction. A straw would probably be too flimsy to work with anyway. A finger would offer more precision but may not allow you to reach the obstruction. Maybe all you parents should print and carry the link's instructions around with you as a reference.
WOW. Nice response. Thanks for the link. If it was one of my girls, I'd try every darn thing to get the thing out of the throat. I have already seen my two girls choke a couple of times, and a slight pat on the back does the trick. It just hasn't gotten that serious, though. They love saying: "DAD... remember I was choking???" I know it is not funny, but hey, they seem to forget the ordeal quickly. How is that Alien vs. Predator movie, anyway?
I remember when I was about 6 or 7 I was sitting alone in my bedroom, watching tv and sucking on one of those hard butterscotch candies. I guess I sucked a little too hard and started choking on it. I ran into my parents bedroom and my dad slapped me really hard twice on my back. Luckily it came up, but what a scary experience. I still think about it to this day everytime I eat one of those things. I think choking and drowning would be about the two worst ways to die.
I had a choking incident last week all by my lonesome. Luckily, it wasn't that bad. I was eating beef jerky. Man, you have to watch out when your eating beef jerky. Sometimes(or a lot of times), the beef jerky you buy in the packages at the grocery store isn't the leanest stuff in the world. All of the fat running throughout the meat essentially dehydrates into a string-like substance. So, I'm sitting there trying to devour some of this beef jerky and I'm chewing it well. However, these embedded strings of fat make the beef tough. Anyway, I had this fat string with some beef on it lodge in my throat. Damn if I didn't start choking with noone around to help me. Luckily, I was able to cough it up but, even after I could breathe, I still felt like this stringy substance was lodged at the opening of my windpipe...like it was caught. So, I'm trying to remove this stuff thinking it's still there and, the whole time, I think it is just my imagination f-ing with me. I think I originally dislodged it but I couldn't shake the feeling that there was some still caught there. I was trying to stick my finger back there to see if there was anything to dislodge to no avail. So, I then started looking for something longer to stick back there. I eventually gave up and I think, at that point, I was still freaked out with my imagination playing tricks on me. Oh well...I survived but I think I'm going to lay off the beef jerky. Whatever you do...don't give your kids that beef jerky in those packages cause those numerous fat strands can make it tough to chew and can get caught in your throat with meat still attached to it. You've been warned. The beef jerky nuggest are okay, though, and that is what I switched to...cause they are, in fact, leaner and easier to chew/break up.
finger sweeps are okay IF you can visualize the object, but never if its a blind sweep. basically if you can see what's causing the choking you'll be more likely to push off the side of the object, but in a blind sweep your likely to push on the end of the object forcing it even further in...
Surfguy - that reminds me of something that happened to me about a year ago. I was hanging out with some friends drinking pints of draft beer. I got to the last swig and down the rest in one big gulp. Immediately, I felt something large and hard get lodged in my throat. It felt like a big chip of ice. I thought, okay, I'll let it melt and it'll go away. Then I realized that it wasn't ice and it wouldn't go away. I could still breath, but I couldn't talk. It was in a spot that I couldn't swallow it and I couldn't control it to spit it up, it was just stuck. I couldn't really talk, but I was able to communicate to my brother that there was something stuck in my throat and I figured that it was probably glass. I tried harder to swallow it or choke it up, but still nothing. I thought about going to the hospital to get it taken out, but I didn't really want to go through that. Fortunately, I didn't panic. I calmly went to the bathroom with my brother to try and get it out. I was able to reach back with my finger and touch it, but I was unable to get a grab of it. After a few tries, my gag reflex kicked in and it popped out into my hand. It was a round, thin chip of glass. I'm amazed that there was no blood on it and I didn't injure anything when it came out. I took it to the manager and he downplayed it and bought my next beer. I wish I would have gotten more than that. I did get a pretty good story though.
Okay but keep in mind that the person is unconscious at this point and you've already tried the Heimlich. This person is about to die. I don't think I'm going to sit there and contemplate whether I should be trying to be poking around down there or not just because I can't visualize or see the object. At that point, I'm willing to try anything regardless or this person will die. Granted, it still may not work but nothing else has worked to this point and I'm all out of things to try(or else I wouldn't be poking around back there in the first place).
