Everyone must have already experienced being choked at least once in their lives due to food, liquid, or object that has been lodged in their throat. Experiencing this is normal, especially if you tend to eat your food without chewing it properly. Though often it is harmless, choking can also be risky and can even cause life-threatening complications.
Given this reason, Vasilis Patelakis, a manager of a Greek restaurant, posted their restaurant's CCTV video that features one of their customers choking from the food he has just eaten while having dinner with his girlfriend. His desire is for everyone to get informed of what to do, especially if they encounter people choking.
In the video posted on Facebook, which happened in Chania, Greece, it can be seen that the couple was having dinner when all of a sudden, the girl noticed something wrong with her partner. At first, he tried to stay calm and just simply cleared his throat by coughing, but to no avail. Later in the video, his situation only got worse as he started to suffer difficulty in breathing.
Though it looks like everyone wants to help, unfortunately, no one seemed to know what to do. Good thing, as the choking guy attracts attention, one of the restaurant's staffs saw what's happening and called the attention of Patelakis. He immediately understood what's going on and quickly do the Heimlich maneuver. After a few minutes, the guy's blockage on his throat was cleared.
He was able to do the Heimlich maneuver by doing these three steps. First, he stood behind the guy and wrapped his arms around his waist. Second, he placed his fist on his abdomen, used the other hand to grip his fist, and created an upward motion. Third, he continued to do it several times.
In a survey conducted by the National Safety Council, choking is regarded as "the fourth leading cause of unintentional injury death," which claims thousands of lives per year. According to their data, in 2015 alone, about 5,051 has died, and most of them were elderly.
Meanwhile, Patelakis came up with an idea to share his knowledge with more people by setting up a Go Get Funding. The money that will be generated from the website will be used to fund small television monitors, which will be distributed to schools, banks, universities, or other public places. His goal is to share first aid videos through those televisions that could be very useful, especially in times of emergency.
