Heimlich's Maneuvers: My Seventy Years of Lifesaving Innovation
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Heimlich's Maneuvers: My Seventy Years of Lifesaving Innovation
256Paperback
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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781616148492 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. |
| Publication date: | 02/11/2014 |
| Pages: | 256 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.90(d) |
About the Author
Henry J. Heimlich, MD, may have saved more lives over the course of his seventy-year medical career than any other living physician. A renowned thoracic surgeon, now retired, Dr. Heimlich is the president of the Heimlich Institute in Cincinnati. His many honors and awards include the Albert Lasker Award, the American Academy of Achievement Award, and induction into the Engineering and Science Hall of Fame and the Safety and Health Hall of Fame International.
Read an Excerpt
HEIMLICH'S MANEUVERS
My Seventy Years of Lifesaving Innovations
By HENRY J. HEIMLICH
Prometheus Books
Copyright © 2014 Henry J. Heimlich, MDAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-61614-850-8
CHAPTER 1
HEEEEERE'S HEIMLICH!
A number of years ago, I turned on Comedy Central and got a jolt. It was a rerun of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, and I was sitting on the guest couch, talking with Johnny. This was back in 1979, at the height of my fame as the inventor of the Heimlich Maneuver. I was surprised to see myself on national television, but the fact is, the maneuver I had created to save the lives of choking victims had proven so effective that it had made me a celebrity.
Before the episode starts, the Comedy Central announcer introduces it by saying, "Dr. Henry Heimlich, originator of the Heimlich Maneuver, is more than a lifesaver; he is a very funny man."
Then Johnny and I are shown seated onstage. "Would you like to demonstrate the maneuver on a doll," asks Johnny, gesturing offstage, "or on a human?"
I answer, jokingly, "I can perform it on a human ... or on you, Johnny." His response is to hold up a finger and say, "That's one, Doctor." Much laughter from the audience.
I then describe to Johnny the symptoms of choking: the person cannot breathe or talk but can signal he is choking by placing a hand to his throat. Johnny gets in front of me, makes wild motions with his head, and points to his throat.
"Johnny," I say, "this is the first time you've been silent on the show." More laughter from the audience as Johnny holds up two fingers and says, "That's two."
Johnny then calls over the lovely Angie Dickinson and demonstrates the maneuver on her. She turns and kisses him on the lips.
I said, "I discover the maneuver and he gets the kiss!" Big laughs. Johnny holds up three fingers.
I then demonstrate how to do the maneuver on oneself by leaning over the back of a chair. I explain that I learned this from people who wrote me about having saved their own lives. "Of course they saved themselves," Johnny says, "or they couldn't have written about it."
I am confused for a moment and then hold up a finger and say, "That's one, Johnny." It brings down the house.
"Dr. Heimlich and I are appearing at the Comedy Store next week," Johnny tells his audience.
Seeing myself on national television is a very strange experience.
I ask myself, "How in the world did I, a physician, wind up on Johnny Carson?" How is it that I invented a lifesaving method that led to my becoming so well known? In my younger years, I never dreamed that my name would become a household word, and it was the last thing my wife wanted, a woman who had grown up with famous parents.
I think it started with a basic aspect of my personality: I have always been driven to find creative ways to solve problems; the simpler the solution, the better. I have seen medical problems and sought creative ways to fix them. If something makes sense, I say, do it. I have attacked the problem of saving lives as a creative entrepreneur, you could say, not as a company man or a guy stuck working in the laboratory day in and day out.
I enjoy the challenge of discovering creative and logical solutions to medical problems, not only in coming up with such solutions as the Heimlich Maneuver but also many others. In fact, I have invented a number of surgical procedures and medical devices that have saved, and continue to save, hundreds of thousands of lives every year.
But what makes the Heimlich Maneuver particularly special is this: while most of my other ideas were put into use by medical professionals, the maneuver is accessible to everyone. Because of its simplicity—and the fact that it works when performed correctly—just about anyone can save a life. People can save the life of a stranger, a neighbor, a spouse, or a child. And it can happen anywhere—in restaurants, homes, ballparks—you name it.
You see, you don't have to be a doctor to save a life. You just have to have knowledge and the instincts to respond in a crisis. I suppose I became famous because my name was associated with the maneuver, but what really got the idea going was the fact that it put in people's hands the ability to help others. It has enabled individuals to recognize that a crisis is at hand, to realize that they have the know-how to save a life, and then to act on that knowledge. And that's a very powerful thing.
I know this to be true because I myself saved a life as a "civilian," you could say, well before I became a physician. In fact, I hadn't even begun medical school. The incident happened when I was twenty-one years old and working a summer job as a camp counselor.
MY FIRST SAVE
It was late morning on August 28, 1941, and I was riding a train from Lee, Massachusetts, to New York City. I had been teaching sailing to children at Camp Mah-Kee-Nac, and now 254 campers, staff members, and I were on our way home after a great summer vacation.
All was well as we sped up to Hatch Pond in northwestern Connecticut. Many of the kids were enjoying their lunches. They were singing and laughing, excited to be on their way home. Suddenly, the train ground to a halt and everyone went flying forward. A quick assessment told me that the campers were shaken up, but no one appeared to be injured. We were in the rear of the train. I ran into the next forward car and knew something had gone severely wrong. This car was tilted, and strangely so. But again, everyone seemed okay.
I jumped out of the train and could not believe what I saw. The four cars ahead were completely off the tracks. The locomotive's engine had been ripped off and was sitting in the pond. (Later, I learned that two engineers had died, trapped in the cab of the submerged engine.) One of the last two cars, where the children and I had been sitting, remained largely undisturbed.
I ran forward, making my way around the disjointed cars. Then something caught my eye. At the base of the second car, I saw a man struggling frantically in four or five feet of water, his head submerged. I jumped in the cold, murky water and swam over to him. I lifted his shoulders to raise up his head. The man coughed and spat out water. His face was blackened with coal dust, and he was crying.
I tried to move him, but it was no use—his right leg was caught in the dirt under the steps of the train car. I could think of nothing more to do than hold the man's head above the water and hope that help would arrive soon.
The man was in tremendous pain, so I tried to engage him in conversation to take his mind off it. He told me his name was Otto Klug, and he was a fireman on the train, the crewperson who shovels the coal that runs the engine. He had leapt from the engine to avoid injury before becoming pinned under the water. To give him some kind of relief, I used the pond water to clean his soot-covered face.
When Mr. Klug found out I was about to be a medical student, he started asking me questions about his condition.
"Am I okay?" he asked fearfully. "Am I going to live?"
"I'm sure you'll be fine," I said.
"Am I going to lose my leg?"
I didn't know what to say. I was quite sure that the answer was yes, but I did not want Mr. Klug to give up hope.
The police and medical personnel finally arrived. By that time, Mr. Klug and I had been in the water for two hours, and we were both shivering. When doctors suggested that they immediately amputate Mr. Klug's leg, he begged them not to. I suggested that they give him morphine, which they did. After that, he calmed down.
Meanwhile, the car was slipping deeper and deeper into the mud. The crew had to act fast. They tied a sheet to the train and ran it under Mr. Klug's back to hold him above the water. Welders used acetylene torches underwater to cut away the steel so that the man could be freed. Seeing that Mr. Klug was in good hands, I returned to the campers, and the press swarmed around us. Mr. Klug was taken to a hospital where his leg was amputated below the knee.
The next day, my father and mother, Philip and Mary Heimlich, were in a hotel in Chicago on the way to visit relatives in Denver. Of course, they had no idea what had happened. The morning after the train wreck, they bought a copy of the New York Times. Mom saw the front-page story of the train crash and read my name and fainted. When she came to, Dad read her the story, and she learned her only son was alive and well.
A month later, I appeared again in the Times, this time in an article whose caption read, "Henry Heimlich of Cornell University Medical College accepting from Frank L. Jones, president of the Greater New York Safety Council, the annual prize, a gold watch, for his calmness and courage in saving a life in a railroad wreck near South Kent, Conn." The article shows a photo of me, beaming, as I accept the award.
Now that I think about it, that recognition was my first brush with fame. Accounts of the accident called me a "hero." But, even back then, I could not have cared less about the attention. Otto Klug was alive, and that's all that mattered.
What I could not have known at the time was that there would be many more Otto Klugs—individuals whose lives I would save using a combination of medical expertise and common sense. And with those experiences would come immense satisfaction from knowing that I was able to help sustain life. But there would be many challenges, too, for I was to learn that the field of medicine was not only a fascinating discipline from which amazing ideas sprout, but that it is also a political minefield.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from HEIMLICH'S MANEUVERS by HENRY J. HEIMLICH. Copyright © 2014 Henry J. Heimlich, MD. Excerpted by permission of Prometheus Books.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Foreword Guy Carpico 11
Author's Note 13
Acknowledgments 15
Chapter 1 Heeeeere's Heimlich! 17
My First Save 19
Chapter 2 My Beginnings 25
An Early Innovation 32
Chapter 3 The Depression, Anti-Semitism, and Visits to Sing Sing Prison 35
Anti-Semitism 36
Prison Time 38
Chapter 4 Medical-School Challenges and a Strange Internship 43
Challenges of Entering Medical School 46
A Medical-School Student 48
Joining the Navy 49
A Medical Intern 51
Chapter 5 En Route to China 55
Leaving America 56
I Am a Mule for the US Navy 59
My Mission Disclosed 61
Arrival in China 63
Chapter 6 A Health Clinic in the Gobi Desert 67
Setting Up a Medical Clinic 70
General Fu Tso Yi 72
An Innovation in the Desert 73
A Patient Dies 77
Transporting a Killer 79
Chapter 7 A Medical Newbie Searches for a Surgical Residency 83
A Real Education 86
Chapter 8 Saving a Life and Finding Love 89
Jane 90
A Proposal of Marriage 94
Chapter 9 Restoring the Ability to Swallow: The Reversed Gastric Tube Operation 97
Treating Patients Who Could Not Swallow 98
Creating a New Esophagus from the Stomach 101
Success in the Laboratory 105
Patients Benefit from the Reversed Gastric Tube Operation 108
An Infant Undergoes the Procedure 112
Chapter 10 Performing the Reversed Gastric Tube Operation behind the Iron Curtain 115
Off to Romania 117
Secrecy and a Communist Government 121
Chapter 11 A Promise to a Dead Soldier Kept The Heimlich Chest Drain Valve 125
The Answer: A Valve 127
A Patient Receives the Chest Drain Valve 128
The Military Takes Notice 129
Chapter 12 A Boy Named Hayani 137
A Disastrous Drink 138
Hayani Arrives in Cincinnati 139
I Operate on Hayani 140
Still Unable to Swallow 142
Relearning How to Speak 144
A Visit to Morocco 146
Chapter 13 Saving the Lives of Choking Victims: The Heimlich Maneuver 149
Choking: A Serious Problem 149
A Successful Experiment 151
Using Air in the Lungs to Push out an Object 153
Getting the Word Out 155
The First Save 160
When the Choking Victim Is Alone 161
My Procedure Gets a Name 163
The Maneuver Goes Mainstream 164
Chapter 14 The American Red Cross and Back Blows 171
Teaching a Potentially Dangerous Method 172
Weak Evidence 174
Red Cross Teachings Are Exposed 176
Abandoning Back Slaps 178
The Return of Back Slaps 179
Chapter 15 The Gift of Breath: The Heimlich MicroTrach 183
The Struggle to Breathe 184
A Tiny, Simple Device 185
A New Lease on Life 187
Hidden from View and Cheaper 189
The Need for Patient Access 193
Chapter 16 Making the Most of Good Ideas 195
Using the Heimlich Maneuver for Drowning 197
Using the Heimlich Maneuver for Asthma 201
Teaching Patients How to Swallow 204
Treating HIV and AIDS with Malariotherapy 209
Chapter 17 Working toward a Caring World 213
Returning to China 215
Signs of Peace 217
A Rewarding Relationship with My Father 223
Allowing Children to Be Superheroes 225
A Caring World on a Global Scale 227
More About Heimlich Heroes 231
Notes 233
Index 245