|
 Heimlich, a doctor who developed a life-saving technique to dislodge
airway blockages, died at Christ Hospital in Cincinnati of
complications from a massive heart attack he suffered on Monday, his
family said in a statement.
A thoracic surgeon who often feuded with the established medical
community, Heimlich said the maneuver which was named after him
saved more than 100,000 lives. He claimed to have used it himself
last May on another resident of the Cincinnati retirement home where
he lived.
"It made me appreciate how wonderful it has been to be able to save
all those lives," he once told the Cincinnati Enquirer.
Heimlich came up with the ground-breaking technique in 1974 after
reading about the high rate of deaths in restaurants that first were
attributed to heart attacks, but later found to have been caused by
diners choking on food.
An ordinary person could be a hero with "the Heimlich Maneuver" - it
requires no equipment, no great strength and only minimal training.
The popular wisdom at the time called for repeatedly slapping the
back of person struggling with an obstruction of the passage to the
lungs.
But Heimlich, who was then at Jewish Hospital in Cincinnati,
believed the back slaps could force the blockage deeper. To prove
his method, he took anesthetized lab dogs, blocked their windpipes
with hunks of meat attached to strings in case of emergency and
developed a technique that would send his name around the world.
The Heimlich Maneuver called for the rescuer to stand behind the
choking victim, apply the thumb-side of a fist to a spot just under
the diaphragm and between the lungs. By pushing sharply on that
spot, a surge of air from the lungs would then expel the blockage.
"Dad was a hero to many people around the world for a simple reason:
He helped save untold numbers of lives through the innovation of
common-sense procedures and devices," his family said in the
statement. "But he was not only a physician and medical inventor, he
was also a humanitarian and a loving and devoted son, husband,
father and grandfather."
Heimlich wrote about his discovery for a medical journal and it
began to spread due to media coverage. A man in Washington state who
came to a neighbor's rescue was credited with being the first person
to use the Heimlich Maneuver shortly after reading a newspaper story
about it. The charismatic doctor also busily promoted the technique,
including appearances on late-night television talk shows with
Johnny Carson and David Letterman.
Heimlich collected anecdotes about Heimlich rescues throughout his
life. Among them were the aide who saved Ronald Reagan during his
1976 presidential campaign and Tom Brokaw coming to the aid of
fellow NBC newsman John Chancellor.
Actress Cher was saved by director Robert Altman and Clint Eastwood
once prevented a partygoer from choking. In 2015, a 13-year-old boy
was able to clear a classmate's blockage after learning the move
watching the cartoon "SpongeBob SquarePants."
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'ONLY METHOD'
It took more than a decade for the medical establishment to adopt
the Heimlich Maneuver, partly because there had been no official
human trials. The American Red Cross recommended it only as a
secondary method to back-slapping.
In 1984, Heimlich was given the prestigious Lasker Award for public
service. A year later C. Everett Koop, then the U.S. surgeon
general, said the Heimlich method should be "the only method" used
for choking victims.
In 1986, it was officially recommended as the primary anti-choking
technique by the Red Cross, although the organization would reverse
that decision in 2006, saying "abdominal thrusts" should only be a
secondary method.
As the Heimlich Maneuver became part of American culture, its
namesake sought more innovation. He thought his technique should
also be used to clear mucus from the lungs during an asthma attack
and was better than cardiopulmonary resuscitation for drowning
victims - claims that were dismissed by authorities such as the Red
Cross and the American Medical Association.
Heimlich damaged his credibility further by espousing malaria
therapy, saying the high fevers of malaria stimulated the body's
immune system enough to counter AIDS, cancer and Lyme disease.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention discounted that
theory, but under Heimlich's direction, human malaria therapy trials
were conducted in Mexico, China and Africa because they would never
have been permitted in the United States.
"I don't follow all the rules if there's a better, faster way to do
it," he told the Los Angeles Times in a 1994 interview. "If your
peers understand what you've done, you are not being creative."
His fiercest critic turned out to be son Peter, who had once played
in a band called Choke and done the music for Heimlich's promotional
film. The son devoted himself to debunking Heimlich's work - first
in a pseudonymous blog - and denounced him as the creator of "a
remarkable unseen history of fraud."
Heimlich's work with malarial therapy to fight AIDS was briefly a
popular cause in the mid-1990s, especially in Hollywood, where
celebrities hosted fundraisers for his research and donors included
Jack Nicholson, Bob Hope and Ron Howard.
Dr. Edward Patrick, a longtime collaborator who died in 2009, issued
a press release in 2003 saying he was the co-developer of the
Heimlich Maneuver.
Heimlich also was credited with inventing a valve that bears his
name and is used to prevent air from filling the chest cavity in
trauma cases.
Heimlich and Jane Murray, daughter of dance school magnate Arthur
Murray and a proponent of alternative medical methods, were married
from 1951 until her death in 2012. They had four children.
(Additional reporting by Frank McGurty, editing by G Crosse)
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