A woman has recounted the experience she had while choking on her own, and as many thoughts raced through her mind, she managed to remember something she’d seen on YouTube that saved her life
A woman has shared a harrowing story of how she choked on a lettuce leaf and couldn’t breathe, but there was nobody around to save her.
Yayne Abeba shared on her Instagram that she was eating a salad alone when a piece of lettuce became lodged in her throat, and she panicked, not knowing what to do. With a thousand thoughts racing through her mind at once, thankfully, a crucial memory came back to her, and she remembered something she’d once watched online.
“If you’re ever alone and you’re choking on a piece of food, here’s how you can save yourself,” she captioned the potentially life-saving video, labelling the advice as a “life hack”.
Yayne said that she’d just had “something really scary happen” to her. “And then I remembered something I saw on YouTube, and it literally saved my life,” she said. Yayne continued: “I want to share this with you, and I want you to put this in your memory bank for if this ever happens to you.
“I was eating a salad, and there was a big a** piece of lettuce, and it got stuck in my throat, and I was choking, and I couldn’t breathe. And I was sitting there thinking, ‘Oh my god, is this how I unalive [die]? Is this the end for me? Are they gonna find me in a week with my cat eating my face’?”
But then, just in the nick of time, she remembered something that she’d seen online. “Then I remembered, if you are ever choking, perform the Heimlich on yourself by using a kitchen counter or a chair,” she urged people.
Yayne continued: “So you force your body up against it, and it makes you cough out the food. So I did that, and it worked. The Motivational Doc’s little thing that he told me on YouTube just saved my life”.
What is the Heimlich Manoeuvre?
According to the Cleveland Clinic, the Heimlich Manoeuvre is a first-aid method for choking that you can use for adults and children.
Another name for the Heimlich Manoeuvre is abdominal thrusts, which involves thrusting into the abdominal area. It’s a quick and life-saving method, but you should only use it on conscious people who can’t breathe on their own.
How does it work?
Dr Henry Heimlich invented the Heimlich Manoeuvre in 1974. Dr Heimlich discovered that the remaining air in a person’s lungs could be used to dislodge a foreign object from their oesophagus using quick, upward thrusts under their ribcage.
How can you perform the Heimlich on yourself?
According to Mayo Clinic, you should dial 999 immediately, then give yourself abdominal thrusts, also called the Heimlich Manoeuvre, to remove the stuck object.
You should:
- Place a fist slightly above your navel.
- Grasp your fist with the other hand.
- Bend over a hard surface. A countertop or chair will do.
- Shove your fist inward and upward.