96-year-old Dr. Henry Heimlich saves woman's life using Heimlich maneuver
His work is responsible for saving thousands of lives, but Dr. Henry Heimlich had never actually used the Heimlich maneuver on an actual person. Until Monday.
Heimlich was eating dinner at his Cincinnati retirement community when the woman next to him, 87-year-old Patty Ris, started choking on a chunk of hamburger meat.
The doctor, who has been demonstrating the maneuver for decades, jumped to her aid — and managed to dislodge the meat and clear her airway in a matter of minutes.
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"It worked right away," Ris told NBC News.
For Heimlich, the incident was an especially proud moment in a career that's already made an incredible difference.
"The whole thing was very moving to me," he told the Associated Press. "I never thought that I would be saving someone's life by doing the Heimlich maneuver."
All staff at the dining hall are reportedly trained on the Heimlich maneuver, but stepped aside once they realized who was taking care of business.
Heimlich developed the method, which involves applying abdominal thrusts to a choking person in order to raise the diaphragm and elicit air from the lungs, in 1974.
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Chloe was the shopping editor at Mashable. She was also previously a culture reporter. You can follow her on Twitter at @chloebryan.
