Posted by: floatfishski
Training and it's unintended results! - 10/12/07 12:45 PM
Yesterday I'm eating lunch with my wife and 4 yr. old son at one of our favorite Mexican food places. I'm having a chicken burrito smothered in green chili and I'm seriously hungry. My wife runs out to the car to get something and I'm eating too fast and promptly get a chunk of chicken lodged in my throat and start to choke. Now this is a really creepy feeling, not being able to breath at all and it's the first time it's ever happened to me. I can see where people would panic when this happens to them but my training kicks in and I don't. By training I mean both the centered calmness of MA and my paramedic/ERT training. So I'm sitting there thinking I'm choking, my wife's out at the car, I'm on the patio by myself with my kid and I've got to deal with this. So I look around and find a corner on a waist high pillar and plan to do a self-Heimlik. Then it comes to me, the idea that the explosive breath used when kicking may just fix this whole thing. So I focus and "DEK" - the chunk of chicken launches across the patio. By this time my wife had spotted me and was making a mead dash through the restaurant which brings the staff running as well. I'm catching my breath and thanking G_d for my training that just may have saved my life in a way that I never imagined. Because of it I was able to think and over rule any instinctual response. So stick with your training and never walk away from an opportunity to learn more. Someday you will be in a fight, though maybe not the one you think of in terms of MA, and your training will give you the tools to win.