How to do the Heimlich Maneuver

Chip Meyers: Hi, I am Chip Meyers. This is Monique Jackson-Asante. We are with the Alexandria Fire Department. Today, we are going to talk about CPR and we are going to talk about -- start off with the foreign body airway obstruction in a conscious person also known as the Heimlich Maneuver. So Monique is choking here and she is showing the international distress sign for choking and I am going to go up to and say are you choking. I am here to help you. I position myself behind her, bring my hands around her waist and I am going to thrust inwards and upwards, inwards and upwards much harder than this and I want to do it as you would in a real situation because we dont want to see what she had for lunch but I am going to thrust inwards and upwards until the obstruction either comes up or she goes unconscious. Then I would lower her to the floor if she goes unconscious and start from there like one on an unconscious victim. Its important to be able to clear an airway thats obstructed because the brain requires oxygen. If the brain goes without oxygen 4 to 6 minutes the brain cells will start to die off. After 6 to 10 minutes the brain death is permanent near irreversible. So its thats why its very important that we get that airway cleared as soon as possible so that we can get air into them. The air that we are breathing right now is about 21% oxygen. Out of that 21%, we are only going to use about 5%, so when we give mouth to mouth to a person, we are actually giving them enough oxygen to sustain their brain for a while and thats how you perform the Heimlich Maneuver.

Next we will talk about foreign body airway obstruction in an unconscious person.