Mark: Hi, I'm Mark for CPR Certification Institute. In today's video we're gonna review choking for the adult, both conscious and an unconscious state.
Hi, babysitting today?
Speaker 2: Hi? Seriously? Where have you been? I'm starving.
Mark: I was filming with Josh today, I told you this.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, the guy that gets drunk and hits on me in the parking lot?
Mark: Was he as drunk as when I agreed to marry you?
Speaker 2: Please, are you serious? No one's ever been that drunk.
Mark: Looking at choking in the adult, believe it or not, alcohol is often times involved. Alcohol is a central nervous system depressant and appetite stimulant.
Speaker 2: Seriously? It's about time.
Mark: I'm sorry, she's a psychotic. Oh my God, slow down, you're gonna start choking. My God, it's like you've never eaten before.
So here you have your pain in the ass wife, or husband, sitting right across from you choking to death. Nah, we took an oath, we still gotta do something. Now, you can't work a choking victim if they're sitting in a restaurant booth, you gotta get them out of the booth. So get your victim out of the booth, explain what you're gonna do to them, because they're freaking out. Anytime you have your airway blocked a little thing goes off in your brain that says, "Hey, you're about to die." So these people may be really freaking out, so communicate with them. Go, "Hey, I know the Heimlich maneuver, I'm going to help you."
Next, position yourself behind the patient. Find either the umbilicus, the belly button, or you can zip down till you find the xiphoid process and come about three fingers bellow that. Make a fist with your other hand, and remember you're gonna put your thumb into the abdomen. This has to come underneath the diaphragm, and the direction you're gonna push is upward, like you're aiming toward the back of their neck. Sharp, deliberate, right toward the back of the neck. In and upward.
Speaker 2: Oh God.
Mark: You're good.
Now, before we talk about doing abdominal thrust to remove an obstruction from a conscious adult victim, let's look at breathing first. How do people breathe? Well, we breathe, take air in and out of the body, mostly through contracture of the diaphragm. Your diaphragm sits transverse, separates the chest from the belly, right? Now here's what happens, your diaphragm contracts and it drops down, and like a vacuum you passively suck air in. The diaphragm comes up, and air comes out of the lungs. So it's the diaphragm going up and down that moves air in and out. So when we're doing those abdominal thrusts, we're really not doing abdominal thrusts, we wanna be doing diaphragm thrusts. We gotta get that diaphragm moving upward. However, the only way to get to the diaphragm from the outside is through the abdomen, that's why we do abdominal thrusts. But remember, important, the direction you have to go, upward. Gotta move that diaphragm up, increase the pressure in the chest, knock that hot dog out of their throat. Now you're gonna continue to do abdominal thrusts, continue to do the Heimlich maneuver, until either the obstruction comes up, or the patient becomes unconscious.
Call 911, get some help.
Now, once your patient is unconscious. First, activate EMS, call 911, get some professional help coming. Next, open up that mouth, take a peek inside that mouth, and if you can find the obstruction pull it out of there. If you can't, no blind finger sweeping, you could actually push it further down. Next, begin chest compressions. Standard CPR, 30 to two. Again, you're gonna compress about two inches at a rate of a 100, so standard CPR. However, every time before you put the breath into the victim, open up that mouth and take a look in there, and if you see the obstruction pull it out. Between the chest compressions and the ventilations, we may have loosened that obstruction, we may be able to pull it out of their mouth now.
I'm Mark for CPR Certification Institute, thank you for watching today's video on adult choking. Remember, you can get certified in CPR right now, just log on to our website, CPRCertification.com, and get started today. Thanks for watching, I'll see you in the next video.