Choking!

Terrified!  Christian decided to hold three raviolis in is mouth and of course he choked on them.  I had my back to him standing at the kitchen counter and heard him gasping, you know that horrible sound.  I hit him on the back and one ravioli popped out. He took in a huge breath but didn't exhale and gave me this look of fear. So I picked him, turned him over and hit his back again.  Out popped ravioli number two and he started crying.  Whew! Crying is a good sign, it means he can breath!  I put him down and then he "choked" again, that gasping sound. So I picked him up, hit is back and out popped ravioli number three.  Even though he was crying (again another good sign that he was breathing) I kept him upside down and hit his back a few more times just in case another ravioli was still lurking in there.  It felt like that coast was clear so I put him down, ripped off the messy bid and just held him for several minutes while he cried and my racing heart slowed down. Scared me to death!!!

It brought back feelings of fear from an incident in my past. I was working one college summer in a hospital cafeteria on the hot food line.  After the line closed and we cleaned up, people would sneak a french fry or whatever because the food was being thrown away.  One 60+ yr old woman, who had worked there for 20+ years, ate a piece of fish.  She started choking and leaned over to try to get it dislodged, but the bad thing was she was behind a cash register and no one could see her. She finally realized she couldn't get it by herself, came out from the behind the register with a deep red face, holding her hands to her throat. A couple of us rushed over and tried to help her but couldn't. Thank goodness we were in a hospital because one worker ran out into the seating area and yelled, literally, "we need a doctor in here!"  Three doctors can running in and immediately starting the hiemlich in the woman, which didn't work, even with all three taking turns.  Her face was getting purple, no really, it was a purplish color and her eyes were rolling around, she was passing out.  One doctor yelled to the other, "get a knife, we have to do a trach!" It was so surreal and terrifying to think that she might die right in front of me.  One doctor rushed back to the kitchen while the other two still did the hiemlich and what appeared to be a limp rag doll at this point, the woman was so out of it. The doctor raced back in with a kitchen knife and towels while the other two starting lowering her to the floor. The change of position did the trick because she took in a deep gasping breath. They stood her up again, hiemliched her and out popped the piece of fish. She stood there gasping and crying for 10 minutes, hugging all three doctors over and over again.  She didn't come into work the next day because she was so sore from being beat on and am sure exhausted from the lack of breathing! Of course we all got lectured and were threatened by the supervisor that if we ever snuck food again, we would be fired.

That was one of the most terrifying moments of my life and now whenever someone chokes, I kind of freak out.  I must say though that I was calm when Christian choked today.  God was helping me not to freak out, knowing that would be the worst thing that could happen. So now I'm going to just stare at him while he eats to make sure each piece is chewed to death and down the hatch before he takes another bite! Yeah right, he's 2 yrs old, like he's going to allow that :)
~Amy