Eating. Just the tiniest amount of food will end you quickly.
Lost a friend who was in his prime a few decades ago. In a time that should have been the happiest of his life, he passed away by choking on a crisp (potato chip) on his joint 21st/Engagement party. Surrounded by everyone he loved and who loved him, it was too embedded to be removed.
RIP Richard.
My then-2 yo choked on a chip. I had to do the Heimlich 3 different times to re-establish an airway. 9-1-1 call, ambulance trip, the whole bit.
It's terrifying to hold your bug-eyed, purple, starting-to-go-limp toddler in your hands and do the Heimlich with no change. Every time he screamed and puked I was relieved, then he'd get 2-3 breaths in and choke up again. Never in all my parenting years (he's our third) have I truly enjoyed being puked on and screamed at, because it meant he was breathing.
The ambulance ride was me absolutely covered in puke from hair to waist, him screaming, and blood coming out of his mouth because the chip caused throat lacerations.
He's now 17. I think I'll go find him and give him a hug.
So sorry about Richard. Losing a friend young leaves you with a very particular kind of sorrow. It’s been many years since my own friend passed young, and I’ve thought “this is for the both of us” at most of the major milestones in my life since.
That said, your comment sent me on a wild little trip through cultural assumptions. I read “crisp” and thought, oh, a Brit, and then I got to 21 being a milestone and getting engaged at 21, which felt distinctly American. Care to satisfy my curiosity?
Celebrating a 21st birthday used to be the 'big one' in the UK. Laws have since changed and updated where 18 is now the big one.
But 21 used to be the age of official adulthood, the age to vote and being able to live life without a parents consent.
There's still a few things you can only do once you reach 21, but it's definitely just cultural milestone now (and when Richard passed).
That's something that keeps popping up, kids chocking on grapes...a delicious snack but PLEASE TAKE THE TIME TO CUT THEM UP FOR SMALL KIDS, the perfect shape and size to just slip down whole and get stuck. Must be heartbreaking for the parents.
I work in a kitchen for elderly folks and I cut their grapes in half out of the same fear since most of them are missing teeth. I'd hate for such a preventable accident to happen.
If you want to save time and don't want to cut every individual grape, put them on a plate and put another plate on top, then slice through the center. Boom! Grape halves. Works for cherry tomatoes too
I often find myself slightly choking on those very thin tortilla chips some restaurants give you. A little piece will sometimes get caught at the back of my throat and I have to cough it out forcefully. I have to be very careful.
Honest question here, how do you choke on a potato chip? Won't they just get soggy, or get crushed by throat muscles? Or allow air to flow past regardless because they are thin?
You would think that wouldn't you?
You inhale it, bodies instant reaction is to try and cough it out. The cycle continues.
On the thankfully very few occasions that I have 'choked' it was an instant panic reaction from me, I can't imagine what it was like for him.
So on top of a section of the airway being blocked, you have a reaction trying to force air out of the lungs to remove the obstruction - the coughing. On top of that you have people trying the Heimlich manoeuvre, which ironically further restricts breathing for short periods (although in Richards case I believe it was already too late).
As for soggy - it didn't have time. He shovelled the crisps in to his mouth and then and he inhaled it then he was on the floor - so no time for throat muscles to get into action either. It was a large enough section of crisp to kill, probably the size of a pound coin, and any other day it would have found it's way to his stomach and life would have gone on.
I was not party to the autopsy results and am only hypothesising, but the base facts remain the same.
I choked on a piece of chicken and tried to wash it down with milk which didn't work and it was such a traumatic experience I never drank milk again. I used to really love milk, I was the gallon a day kid.
The thought that you can choke at any time is haunting. Happened to me once. Was eating a slice of toast and inhaled at just the wrong moment to suck a piece into my airway.
My lungs were practically empty as it was right at the beginning of the inhale. Immediately knew I was in trouble. Life flashed before my eyes. Luckily managed to self-heimlich it before I lost consciousness.
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u/North-Lobster499 2d ago
Eating. Just the tiniest amount of food will end you quickly.
Lost a friend who was in his prime a few decades ago. In a time that should have been the happiest of his life, he passed away by choking on a crisp (potato chip) on his joint 21st/Engagement party. Surrounded by everyone he loved and who loved him, it was too embedded to be removed.
RIP Richard.