Speech #13: The Heimlich Maneuver

Umatilla, FL

[Toastmaster Project "Speaking to Inform" Project #3, The Demonstration Speech.  Goals: Prepare a speech that clearly demonstrates a process, product or activity.

Readers:  Obviously this demo needs a video, not written words.  Sorry for that.]

Performing the Heimlich Maneuver

Everyone has heard of the Heimlich Maneuver to help a choking person. But, it is important to do it right. I did it once on my wife. Afterwards, she said, “Thank you, but next time do it better, I think you cracked a rib.” So, let's take a few minutes to review the right ways.

Number 1: A Standing Person.

May I ask John Duran to come forward and be my demo victim.

Make sure the person is really choking. Look for secondary signals.

Hands at throat, can't breath, can't talk, can't cough, turning blue, unconsciousness

Tell the choking person you want to help them. Say “I know the Heimlich Maneuver and I am going to perform it on you.” That helps calm both you and the victim. Panic is bad.

With one hand, make a fist. You're going to wrap your other hand around your fist. Position your fist below the ribcage, but above the navel.

Gently wrap both arms around their waist. Lean them forward just slightly.

Make a series of thrust, hard and quick into the abdomen. Pull inward and upward as you press. It should feel like you're trying to lift the person off the ground.

John, while I do this I want you so say Ahhh, so that the audience can hear the effect this has on you.

If that didn't work, try five more thrusts.

If that didn't work do back blows with the heel of your hand. Aim for the area between the shoulder blades. Use enough force, but just with your hand. Do not squeeze or hug the person. John please say Ahh again.

If that doesn't work call 911, or have someone else call. Continue the back blows while waiting. When they arrive, back off and let them work.

Thank you John, you may sit down. How about a big hand for John Duran?

Number 2: Someone Lying Down

If I asked John to lay down on the floor up here, you wouldn't be able to see him. So I brought a smaller victim.

Verify that they are choking, and inform them of your intentions, just as with a standing person.

Get the person on their back.

Kneel at the person's hips.

No fist, Place one hand on top of the other. Place the heel of the bottom hand on the person's abdomen. This is the area just below the ribcage but above the navel.

Thrust inward and upward using your bodyweight

If that doesn't work, call 911 and continue thrusts until they arrive.

Number 3: On an Infant

Lay the infant face down on a firm surface or on your lap. Make sure the infant's head is turned so they can breathe.

Give five quick blows to the back with the heel of your hand between the infant's shoulder blades.

Be firm in the blows but not too hard. Gravity combined with back blows is your strategy.

If that doesn't work, turn the infant over. Support their head with your hand, keeping the head slightly lower than the feet.

Place your fingers on the lower half of the infant's breastbone. Make sure to keep your hand in the middle of your infant's breastbone and not to one side of another. Press down five times in a series of chest thrusts. Call 911 if that doesn't work As you wait, keep repeat the back blows and the chest thrusts.

Number 4: on Yourself

Make a fist. Place the thumb side of your fist against your abdomen below the ribcage, but above the navel. Wrap your other hand around your fist and thrust inwards and upwards.

If that doesn't work and you're still conscious, try to call 911.

You should see a doctor after saving yourself from choking to make sure there is no damage.

Madam Toastmaster

Here I Scoop the Whole Journalism Industry

I've always liked writing essays.   Op-Eds, blog posts, and speeches.   Back in the 90s, before I had a blog to preserve these essays I wrote many essays that I no longer have copies of.  One of them was about information in the 21st century.

My premise was this.  All through recorded history, objects and property have been the tokens of wealth.  Gold is the symbolic icon for all physical goods and money.   

In the 21st century, information is going to become king.  By 2100, I predict that 99% of the world's wealth will be in the form of Information, control of information flow, information processing, and information mining.   It has aleady begun big.  Think of the value of the Amazon.com company.  Think how little of that value is in the form of offices, warehouses and computer servers.  Ditto for Google and Facebook.  Their physical assets are almost nothing.

Modernization is good. But here's the problem.  Those laws are totally inadequate for something so valuable.  Only property law is rich enough and refined enough from centuries of experience to cover great wealth.   But property rights have never been applied to information other than patent, copyright, and trademarks.   

Medical records in your doctor's office are the doctor's property.  The information in those records has no legal status.  You have no rights.  If the doctor doesn't pay his rent, the landlord can seize the doctor's property including medical records.  Then the landlord is free do to anything he wants with them.  HIPPA and other laws don't touch the landlord because he is not a health care provider.

If I give you an apple, then I don't have the apple any more.  But if I share information with you, now we both have it.  Who owns it?  The law does not permit the concept of ownership of information.

 

When a Hollywood movie executive shares information about how he abuses women, all the world's journalists are free to make money publishing that information.  The executive retains no proprietary interest or property rights to that info.  Sadly, the same applies to audio recordings of what Amazon's Alexa might have recorded in the bedroom.   The homeowner has no ownership rights in that information.

Information is not like physical property so it would be very difficult to treat it as property under the law.  That difficult task is precisely what I belive every country must do.

So way back in the 90s, I predicted that in the 21st century, we would be  forced to redefine information as property that can be owned and sold and that has value. 

That brings us to today,  I just listened to the oral arguments in the US Supreme Court Case of Carpenter v. United States.   The issue was government access to our cell phone locatoin records without a warrant and without probable cause.  

Most of the arguments centered on the reasonable expectation of privacy, which is the traditional and only way it seems to protect privacy.   But then I heard the justices say something that made me jump out of my seat.  They said (my paraphrase) "Suppose it was not an issue of privacy.  Suppose we treated a customers cell phone history information as property that belongs to the customer, not to the phone company."   The lawyer for the government was stunned almost speechless.  He said, (my paraphrase) "But but but.  That would be revolutionary in law."

Aha! The moment I predicted has arrived during my lifetime.  Don't get me wrong, there are long hard battles to fight.  This is merely the opening shot in the war.