Yeah, this irks me as well. Why does this even have to come into play. Why not just thank Dr. Heimlich and give him all the well deserved credit?
This lady could have just as easily been one of the millions of people since the maneuver was invented to have not been sitting next to Dr. Heimlich when they began to choke.
Why shit all over someone else's way of viewing the world if it doesn't affect you?
And none of the nonsense about Christians that don't believe in global warming or abortions or something, because you have no idea of this woman's stance on any of that.
Disclaimer: I'm as agnostic as they come.
EDIT: Let me add that I think it's ridiculous to criticize religious people for being religious. It is regressive and promotes animosity between the religious and the rest of us. A truly religious person will sooner die than give up their religion.
I certainly do not think it's ridiculous to criticize religion. It's 2016, some supernatural beliefs should not get a free pass just because people will feel offended. However, choose your battles. Elderly people saying a very common phrase is hardly something to get worked up about.
You make a bold assumption that "it doesn't affect you" (surely you'd agree this is up for debate no?), then the very next sentence describe political views that can be attributed directly to religious beliefs you're claiming have no affect on anyone.
All ideas should be up for criticism. It is the very nature of religion somehow being off limits for debate that allows bad ideas to go unchallenged and spread.
All ideas should be up for criticism, yes. But not all ideas should be criticized.
The difference being that some criticisms are productive (presumably fresh, creative takes on thinking about something) and some simply serve the purpose of making the critic feel good about himself.
In what way do we benefit to hear a criticism of religion for the umpteen-millionth time and on the internet of all places? No one is refining their thought processes, no one is benefiting.
Looks like many have been refining their thought process. Perhaps it's from all of the criticism on the internet?
Just because all minds won't be swayed doesn't mean some won't be.
I do think criticizing the idea is more valid than criticizing the person who believes in that idea.
It sounds like what you mean to say is not all ideas need to be criticized always and everywhere they are present. Makes sense.
If you mean that religion should not be criticized anymore we've done it enough.... I don't see how this is not that same as saying religion is an idea that should not be up for criticism. Why is it special?
There is a time and place. An article about Dr. Heimlich in which some senior citizen invokes an age old remark isn't it.
Once you can show me the data on the benefit from that single remark, and that it doesn't correlate with the concept of 'diminishing returns' strongly, then I'll concede.
Did I think I was on hackernews but accidentally visited reddit? (I've been here for long enough that I'm allowed to say that according to the rules, btw). How does a super facile refutation of people's traditional beliefs advance the discussion at all?
While I completely understand why this is an annoying point of view, the apparent contradiction is well understood. The official theology of many religions is that everything good comes from God, everything bad comes from people. God gave people some freedom, and they abused it to create all the problems of the world, which he is constantly working to correct, but he leaves a lot of the negative effects of our choices for our own good because we need to understand how much we need him and lots of other mysterious reasons that we wouldn't understand because we're too limited to see the big picture.
It's totally legitimate to complain about not liking this point of view, but people do know what they're doing when they thank God for everything good and blame people for everything bad. I think it's important for non-religious people to understand that because so much of the world is religious and believes that God sets the standard for what's true, not the appearance of things which we're able to understand and reason through.
From a Christian perspective - Yes - even the choking. there's an aspect of God's will that is permissive - it is thought that God permits evil because it could allow for a higher good such as free will. Though this can't be said for sure.
Nihilism is the position that nothing outside of the immediate has meaning. It's a polar opposite to theism, which places meaning in the hands of one or more deities.
... but then God surely can't be omnibenevolent!? (But perhaps that doctrine's been abandoned?)
I'm just pointing out the contradictions in "classic" Christianity. Regardless of all that, unless we somehow come up with a coherent and agreed-upon definition of God, I don't suspect anyone's mind will be changed by logical argument. And, thus, I defeat my own argument.
EDIT: I mean, it was Epicurus (~2000 years ago!) who first put this argument forward and I don't think anyone's ever come up with a good answer, so I'm forced to think that the problem is either a) coming up with a satisfactory definition of God, or b) belief in God is not determined by rational reasoning.
I think I might agree if you changed "belief" to "faith"[1]. "Belief" can be informed by evidence (flawed or not), but "faith" is explicit belief-without-evidence. The latter -- I agree -- is a terrible idea, but presumably some of the people who have a "belief" in a higher being have some sort of evidence[2]. That doesn't mean that I would automatically dismiss them, but I would argue that they perhaps haven't learned enough about how to critically evaluate evidence.
EDIT: A mildly interesting observation: There's one kind of evidence that believers use that's actually routinely accepted in a court of law, namely Eyewitness Testimony (e.g. "I saw the Virin Mary!" in the religious context). More interestingly, Eyewitness Testimony has been shown to be incredibly unreliable for finding out what really happened.
[1] The distinction is somewhat technical, but it's a Big Deal(TM) in Philosophy.
[2] Though, it's probably not the sort of evidence that's accepted by anyone else. (Revelation, that kind of thing.)
> but presumably some of the people who have a "belief" in a higher being have some sort of evidence[2]
As you've noted, their evidence isn't the kind worth considering and is thus not good evidence and thus is not rational to conclude a belief with. I stand by my statement, there is not a rational reason to believe in any gods of any sort. That doesn't mean people don't believe, or don't claim they have evidence, it merely means their beliefs/evidence is not rational and is easily picked apart by actual rational thinking. There aren't any arguments for gods that aren't just bad arguments that presuppose God.
As a Christian, I would agree - God's revelation stands in opposition to human rationality. Examples: He demands that we love our enemies. Give away our possessions. Have faith where there is absolutely no hope in anything after our minds disintegrate after death.
The Bible addresses this: "We are fools for Christ [...] We are weak, but you are strong! You are honored, we are dishonored!" 1 Corinthians 4:10
> As a Christian, I would agree - God's revelation stands in opposition to human rationality.
But then... how do you know anything if you can just "faith it!" instead? I mean, if I could choose to just believe things "because" then that's obviously a lot easier (cognitively) than reasoning my way through it[1], but it's not very satisfactory, philosophically.
[1] Obviously that process could still lead to a lot of wrong, so it's not perfect. The point is that it's adaptive.
I agree! Fundamentally you can't know God's revelation to us. To be a Christian is to be filled with tremendous doubt and to always engaged in a deep struggle with faith.
The flip side is that our rational thoughts always lead to the conclusion that we have meaningless existence: Either we die, or our universe collapses, or we change into something new. Sincere shows us we march to a death so complete that we don't even know we're dead.
The alternative Christian viewpoint - the crazy bible story about whales, arks, weird laws and a jewish man who claims to be God and yet dies - starts to sound like hope to some people.
> To be a Christian is to be filled with tremendous doubt and to always engaged in a deep struggle with faith.
I can simplify that further, to be Christian is to deny reason.
The struggle with faith is a struggle against reason, faith stands in opposition to reason and rightly should lose. That faith wins over reason is a testament to the failure of critical thinking on that topic. Belief should never triumph over reason otherwise one can believe anything and wind up forever lost in the infinity of delusions of the mind. Reason is how you separate fantasy from reality, which is a rather important skill to have.
> The flip side is that our rational thoughts always lead to the conclusion that we have meaningless existence
Yours might, but I'd assert those thoughts aren't rational nor is your definition of meaningless. Atheists have no problem at all finding meaning in their lives; to say a life without God is meaningless is quite frankly a completely nonsensical statement that can only make sense in the mind of a person unable to see beyond his own presupposition of God and small minded view of the world. You seem to forget you live in a world full of people who don't believe in your God whom you are basically asserting have meaningless lives because they don't share your particular superstition; it's really quite silly to believe that.
> The alternative Christian viewpoint - the crazy bible story about whales, arks, weird laws and a jewish man who claims to be God and yet dies - starts to sound like hope to some people.
It sounds insane to rational people, because it is. That anyone can actually believe that stuff is a sign of a complete lack of critical thinking skills on that subject.
As I understand it, from all known rational viewpoints everything about our lives are entirely meaningless because the evidence shows that nothing about our lives will remain or will be observed.
Everything about you will not exist in a few short years.
Everything ever built by anyone will either not exist or will be no longer have any energy (and no observer) once the universe collapses or goes through heat-death.
To be a Christian is to accept reason - and then to have hope.
> As I understand it, from all known rational viewpoints everything about our lives are entirely meaningless because the evidence shows that nothing about our lives will remain or will be observed.
I honestly don't think you do understand it if you think all known rational viewpoints see life as meaningless because that's simply not true. The lack of immortality does not make life meaningless; that's a belief your religion sold you.
"meaningless", you keep you that word, I do not think it means what you think it means.
> Everything about you will not exist in a few short years.
So what? The same applies to everyone. Doesn't make life meaningless.
> Everything ever built by anyone will either not exist or will be no longer have any energy (and no observer) once the universe collapses or goes through heat-death.
Again, so what? Doesn't make life meaningless. I do not care what happens to the universe billions of years in the future and if you do, then that's something you could stand to reexamine because thinking that it makes life meaningless is not rational.
> To be a Christian is to accept reason - and then to have hope.
Hope, sure, but reason, I do not think so. You are basically asserting that lack of a God equals a meaningless existence, a completely foundation-less assertion entirely devoid of reason that can't be logically argued, only asserted as a circular argument that pre-supposes God's existence.
I'm not a Christian, but I've thought about this from time to time. God could be omnibenevolent, but just not on terms that humans can understand. Humans only know about what happens during life and do not understand what happens after death.
> I'm not a Christian, but I've thought about this from time to time. God could be omnibenevolent, but just not on terms that humans can understand
I thought that was the whole mandate? I mean, if $DEITY didn't have our best (human-centered) interests at heart, then was does $DEITY actually do?
(EDIT: I'm not being argumentative for the sake of it. I just really don't understand the reasoning behind this and how anyone can accept the reasoning.)
Let's make the question as hard as possible: The child dies a lingering, painful death and the child despairs.
The annoying bit is that the Christian answer to this question sucks from a rational viewpoint - we humans cry out for our own justice against this God that allows such suffering.
Just be mindful before you assume that Christians are completely crazy, that for from our viewpoint God suffers as well - not only does he love this child, but he also died for this child - in order that all of us could be drawn to him.
The Christian term for this suffering is his "passion" - in that he longs to be with each and every one of us as an individual.
It really seems that from our viewpoint is would seem so!
The Christian viewpoint is that suffering will be redeemed - God promises us that he will "wipe away every tear from their eyes" (Revelation of St. John 21:4)
As Christians, one of the problems that we create is that we try to make all "make sense." We can't - because we don't have the full picture. As such, I have to apologize that my answer for the problem of evil isn't satisfactory.
Here's a good overview from a theological and rational viewpoint:
Are you trying to pass this atheist passive-aggressiveness off as wit? If so, you should have come up with something more original than this trite phrase.
You've broken the HN guidelines twice, first by provoking a tedious religions flamewar and then by being personally uncivil. We ban accounts that do this. Please (re-)read the site guidelines and follow them. That means posting civil, substantive comments, or none at all.
Please don't post comments like this to HN. It amounts to trolling. Intentionally or not, the effect is the same.
Religious flamewars and religious litigation are off topic here. They aren't new, they aren't interesting, and they reliably set a bunch of people off.
pyrotherapy is a real thing, and has been used very successfully in the treatment of the later stages of syphillis. of course, it only works because syphillis is really temperature sensitive, which isn't the case of the pathogens concerned.
Well, I'm an anaesthetist, and have heard this argument.
I personally did a heimlich maneuvere on a hospital inpatient who was blue and choking on a big bit of bread, and the bread came out and he turned pink again.
So from my samples size of N=1, it works 100% of the time. I would like to know the high quality randomized controlled trials which show that it doesn't?
Just like Lisa's rock. Nothing works 100% of the time, and obviously they do not use "high quality randomized controlled trials" since killing people is not ethical. Current recommendations are to begin with back blows.
The wiki article says what I said, that's why I asked why you were having a hard time finding it. It is not my site, it is his son's site. Try reading.
"According to Roger White MD of the Mayo Clinic and American Heart Association (AHA), "There was never any science here. Heimlich overpowered science all along the way with his slick tactics and intimidation, and everyone, including us at the AHA, caved in.""
I did, they recommend the Heimlich Maneuver. Edit: Don't keep quoting your crazy crackpot site, we're talking about Wikipedia and the Mayo site here. Focus
Yes, because of "Heimlich overpowered science all along the way with his slick tactics and intimidation, and everyone, including us at the AHA, caved in." Seriously, read what you reply to.
Your comments have repeatedly been violating the HN guidelines by being uncivil and unsubstantive. We ban accounts that do this, so please stop doing this. Instead, please (re)-read the site rules and post civilly and substantively, or not at all.
Understandable, then I guess you could just do it for this quote chain? Do you really want a crackpot pimping his personal site and cause? You'll just be putting out more fires with other people later, and you still won't really know why they're cropping up.
Re-read the comment thread, the person I'm "conversing" with can't even keep it straight when he's talking about Wikipedia, the Mayo Clinic site, or his special "site".
And have you actually read over his site? No offense, but my time isn't significantly less valuable than yours, so if you want to spend that kind of time, be my guest.
I like to think the greatest moment of my life was when I performed the heimlich on a colleague on an airplane. It took three tries but it worked. In retrospect I was surprised how calm I was. I remember thinking on the third try, "if this doesn't work, I'm yelling for a flight attendant."
What's even crazier is I was sitting in the window seat, she in the middle seat. I'm surprised it worked in such cramped circumstances.
And something amusing: the guy in the aisle seat slept through the whole thing.
"There was never any science here. Heimlich overpowered science all along the way with his slick tactics and intimidation, and everyone, including us at the AHA, caved in."
It isn't though, if you read past the first paragraph in the wikipedia history of the technique.
"The European Resuscitation Council and the Mayo Clinic recommend alternating between five back slaps and five abdominal thrusts in cases of severe airway obstructions.[1][2]"
I hardly think they'd still recommend the maneuver still if it was "bunk".
>I hardly think they'd still recommend the maneuver still if it was "bunk".
The mayo clinic doesn't recommend it any more. And your logic there makes no sense. At what point does "still" matter? It used to be recommended by more people. It has been falling out of favor as more and more organizations stop recommending it as there is no evidence to support it. The fact that a few haven't updated their guidelines yet doesn't make it supported by evidence.
Reading the article it seems the author admits that it works, and the "new way" starts with back slaps and then goes into using "abdominal thrusts" (aka "The Heimlich maneuver") But between the original published idea and this article really it says more that it might not be the most effective technique, it never says it is "bunk"
Heimlich means well, but the popularity of his maneuver is due more to his relentless promotional skills, and not to sound research. If someone is choking, it's best to slap them hard on the back a few times.
That article says nothing about the Heimlich maneuver for choking. Only that you shouldn't use it on a drowning victim. Most sources seem to recommend the Heimlich maneuver for choking victims, possibly in conjunction with blows to the back between the shoulder blades, but only in cases of complete airway obstruction.
Last time I did my first aide certificate here in Australia (late 90s), if the back slapping is unsuccessful, the preferred technique was to lay them down on their side, place your hands under their armpit, flat over their ribs and try short, sharp compressions, squeezing the lungs.
Because the Heimlich technique is so well known, I remember the instructor citing the above as superior because it was less likely to break ribs or do other internal damage.
Caveat: This is in the case of complete obstruction and/or unconsciousness. If it is a partial obstruction, and you can keep the person calm enough to breathe enough, call an ambulance. All first aide is about keeping the person alive long enough for the professionals to take over, not being a hero that solves the problem yourself.
Looked up St John's and it looks like the technique has changed since then: [1] This actually sounds harder for effective compressions though, and requires more strength.
I'm a doctor in Australia. The current recommendation is 5 blows to the back between the scapulae followed by 5 pushes on the sternum. Alternate until they either can breathe again or pass out.
Heimlich doesn't feature, but I can't say I wouldn't try it if nothing else was working.
> Alternate until they either can breathe again or pass out.
What do you do once they pass out?
Yes, I agree doing the Heimlich would be better than doing nothing. Just that other there seems to be other techniques that are better than Heimlich. I'll defer to your judgement though.
81 comments
[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 155 ms ] threadThat would be him using technique on himself.
This lady could have just as easily been one of the millions of people since the maneuver was invented to have not been sitting next to Dr. Heimlich when they began to choke.
And none of the nonsense about Christians that don't believe in global warming or abortions or something, because you have no idea of this woman's stance on any of that.
Disclaimer: I'm as agnostic as they come.
EDIT: Let me add that I think it's ridiculous to criticize religious people for being religious. It is regressive and promotes animosity between the religious and the rest of us. A truly religious person will sooner die than give up their religion.
I certainly do not think it's ridiculous to criticize religion. It's 2016, some supernatural beliefs should not get a free pass just because people will feel offended. However, choose your battles. Elderly people saying a very common phrase is hardly something to get worked up about.
All ideas should be up for criticism. It is the very nature of religion somehow being off limits for debate that allows bad ideas to go unchallenged and spread.
The difference being that some criticisms are productive (presumably fresh, creative takes on thinking about something) and some simply serve the purpose of making the critic feel good about himself.
In what way do we benefit to hear a criticism of religion for the umpteen-millionth time and on the internet of all places? No one is refining their thought processes, no one is benefiting.
Looks like many have been refining their thought process. Perhaps it's from all of the criticism on the internet?
Just because all minds won't be swayed doesn't mean some won't be.
I do think criticizing the idea is more valid than criticizing the person who believes in that idea.
It sounds like what you mean to say is not all ideas need to be criticized always and everywhere they are present. Makes sense.
If you mean that religion should not be criticized anymore we've done it enough.... I don't see how this is not that same as saying religion is an idea that should not be up for criticism. Why is it special?
Once you can show me the data on the benefit from that single remark, and that it doesn't correlate with the concept of 'diminishing returns' strongly, then I'll concede.
It's totally legitimate to complain about not liking this point of view, but people do know what they're doing when they thank God for everything good and blame people for everything bad. I think it's important for non-religious people to understand that because so much of the world is religious and believes that God sets the standard for what's true, not the appearance of things which we're able to understand and reason through.
You forgot the Devil, he gets blamed every so often.
I'm just pointing out the contradictions in "classic" Christianity. Regardless of all that, unless we somehow come up with a coherent and agreed-upon definition of God, I don't suspect anyone's mind will be changed by logical argument. And, thus, I defeat my own argument.
EDIT: I mean, it was Epicurus (~2000 years ago!) who first put this argument forward and I don't think anyone's ever come up with a good answer, so I'm forced to think that the problem is either a) coming up with a satisfactory definition of God, or b) belief in God is not determined by rational reasoning.
There are no rational arguments for a belief in God, so this is the answer. All belief in any gods is irrational by nature.
EDIT: A mildly interesting observation: There's one kind of evidence that believers use that's actually routinely accepted in a court of law, namely Eyewitness Testimony (e.g. "I saw the Virin Mary!" in the religious context). More interestingly, Eyewitness Testimony has been shown to be incredibly unreliable for finding out what really happened.
[1] The distinction is somewhat technical, but it's a Big Deal(TM) in Philosophy.
[2] Though, it's probably not the sort of evidence that's accepted by anyone else. (Revelation, that kind of thing.)
As you've noted, their evidence isn't the kind worth considering and is thus not good evidence and thus is not rational to conclude a belief with. I stand by my statement, there is not a rational reason to believe in any gods of any sort. That doesn't mean people don't believe, or don't claim they have evidence, it merely means their beliefs/evidence is not rational and is easily picked apart by actual rational thinking. There aren't any arguments for gods that aren't just bad arguments that presuppose God.
The Bible addresses this: "We are fools for Christ [...] We are weak, but you are strong! You are honored, we are dishonored!" 1 Corinthians 4:10
But then... how do you know anything if you can just "faith it!" instead? I mean, if I could choose to just believe things "because" then that's obviously a lot easier (cognitively) than reasoning my way through it[1], but it's not very satisfactory, philosophically.
[1] Obviously that process could still lead to a lot of wrong, so it's not perfect. The point is that it's adaptive.
The flip side is that our rational thoughts always lead to the conclusion that we have meaningless existence: Either we die, or our universe collapses, or we change into something new. Sincere shows us we march to a death so complete that we don't even know we're dead.
The alternative Christian viewpoint - the crazy bible story about whales, arks, weird laws and a jewish man who claims to be God and yet dies - starts to sound like hope to some people.
I can simplify that further, to be Christian is to deny reason.
The struggle with faith is a struggle against reason, faith stands in opposition to reason and rightly should lose. That faith wins over reason is a testament to the failure of critical thinking on that topic. Belief should never triumph over reason otherwise one can believe anything and wind up forever lost in the infinity of delusions of the mind. Reason is how you separate fantasy from reality, which is a rather important skill to have.
> The flip side is that our rational thoughts always lead to the conclusion that we have meaningless existence
Yours might, but I'd assert those thoughts aren't rational nor is your definition of meaningless. Atheists have no problem at all finding meaning in their lives; to say a life without God is meaningless is quite frankly a completely nonsensical statement that can only make sense in the mind of a person unable to see beyond his own presupposition of God and small minded view of the world. You seem to forget you live in a world full of people who don't believe in your God whom you are basically asserting have meaningless lives because they don't share your particular superstition; it's really quite silly to believe that.
> The alternative Christian viewpoint - the crazy bible story about whales, arks, weird laws and a jewish man who claims to be God and yet dies - starts to sound like hope to some people.
It sounds insane to rational people, because it is. That anyone can actually believe that stuff is a sign of a complete lack of critical thinking skills on that subject.
As I understand it, from all known rational viewpoints everything about our lives are entirely meaningless because the evidence shows that nothing about our lives will remain or will be observed.
Everything about you will not exist in a few short years.
Everything ever built by anyone will either not exist or will be no longer have any energy (and no observer) once the universe collapses or goes through heat-death.
To be a Christian is to accept reason - and then to have hope.
I honestly don't think you do understand it if you think all known rational viewpoints see life as meaningless because that's simply not true. The lack of immortality does not make life meaningless; that's a belief your religion sold you.
"meaningless", you keep you that word, I do not think it means what you think it means.
> Everything about you will not exist in a few short years.
So what? The same applies to everyone. Doesn't make life meaningless.
> Everything ever built by anyone will either not exist or will be no longer have any energy (and no observer) once the universe collapses or goes through heat-death.
Again, so what? Doesn't make life meaningless. I do not care what happens to the universe billions of years in the future and if you do, then that's something you could stand to reexamine because thinking that it makes life meaningless is not rational.
> To be a Christian is to accept reason - and then to have hope.
Hope, sure, but reason, I do not think so. You are basically asserting that lack of a God equals a meaningless existence, a completely foundation-less assertion entirely devoid of reason that can't be logically argued, only asserted as a circular argument that pre-supposes God's existence.
There is a pretty cool short story The Egg that relates to this. I won't ruin it by trying to describe it myself. You can read it here: http://www.galactanet.com/oneoff/theegg_mod.html
I thought that was the whole mandate? I mean, if $DEITY didn't have our best (human-centered) interests at heart, then was does $DEITY actually do?
(EDIT: I'm not being argumentative for the sake of it. I just really don't understand the reasoning behind this and how anyone can accept the reasoning.)
(as does the flying spaghetti monster, the tooth fairy and santa)
The annoying bit is that the Christian answer to this question sucks from a rational viewpoint - we humans cry out for our own justice against this God that allows such suffering.
Just be mindful before you assume that Christians are completely crazy, that for from our viewpoint God suffers as well - not only does he love this child, but he also died for this child - in order that all of us could be drawn to him.
The Christian term for this suffering is his "passion" - in that he longs to be with each and every one of us as an individual.
It really seems that from our viewpoint is would seem so!
The Christian viewpoint is that suffering will be redeemed - God promises us that he will "wipe away every tear from their eyes" (Revelation of St. John 21:4)
As Christians, one of the problems that we create is that we try to make all "make sense." We can't - because we don't have the full picture. As such, I have to apologize that my answer for the problem of evil isn't satisfactory.
Here's a good overview from a theological and rational viewpoint:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Best_of_all_possible_worlds
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html
Religious flamewars and religious litigation are off topic here. They aren't new, they aren't interesting, and they reliably set a bunch of people off.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linus_Pauling#Medical_research...
[1] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7CgtIgSyAiU
I personally did a heimlich maneuvere on a hospital inpatient who was blue and choking on a big bit of bread, and the bread came out and he turned pink again.
So from my samples size of N=1, it works 100% of the time. I would like to know the high quality randomized controlled trials which show that it doesn't?
Your site is... lol
Seriously, try reading.
http://www.mayoclinic.org/first-aid/first-aid-choking/basics...
Now go invent a 'perpetual motion machine' or sight a UFO and leave me alone.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html
Much harder to argue against a well-reasoned response than personal attacks.
And have you actually read over his site? No offense, but my time isn't significantly less valuable than yours, so if you want to spend that kind of time, be my guest.
It would be amusing if there were a long history of 'first times'.
What's even crazier is I was sitting in the window seat, she in the middle seat. I'm surprised it worked in such cramped circumstances.
And something amusing: the guy in the aisle seat slept through the whole thing.
- YOU'RE CHOKING??? -- No, coughing...
- YOU'RE CHOKING??? -- NO, Heimlich, I'm holding my breath... I have the hiccups....
- YOU'RE CHOKING??? -- FUCKING HEIMLICH! I'M TRYING TO TAKE A DUMP!!
"There was never any science here. Heimlich overpowered science all along the way with his slick tactics and intimidation, and everyone, including us at the AHA, caved in."
"The European Resuscitation Council and the Mayo Clinic recommend alternating between five back slaps and five abdominal thrusts in cases of severe airway obstructions.[1][2]"
I hardly think they'd still recommend the maneuver still if it was "bunk".
The mayo clinic doesn't recommend it any more. And your logic there makes no sense. At what point does "still" matter? It used to be recommended by more people. It has been falling out of favor as more and more organizations stop recommending it as there is no evidence to support it. The fact that a few haven't updated their guidelines yet doesn't make it supported by evidence.
Reading the article it seems the author admits that it works, and the "new way" starts with back slaps and then goes into using "abdominal thrusts" (aka "The Heimlich maneuver") But between the original published idea and this article really it says more that it might not be the most effective technique, it never says it is "bunk"
http://www.metroactive.com/papers/metro/01.05.05/heimlich-05...
Because the Heimlich technique is so well known, I remember the instructor citing the above as superior because it was less likely to break ribs or do other internal damage.
Caveat: This is in the case of complete obstruction and/or unconsciousness. If it is a partial obstruction, and you can keep the person calm enough to breathe enough, call an ambulance. All first aide is about keeping the person alive long enough for the professionals to take over, not being a hero that solves the problem yourself.
Looked up St John's and it looks like the technique has changed since then: [1] This actually sounds harder for effective compressions though, and requires more strength.
[1] http://www.stjohnambulance.com.au/docs/posters/ehs_choking_a...
Heimlich doesn't feature, but I can't say I wouldn't try it if nothing else was working.
What do you do once they pass out?
Yes, I agree doing the Heimlich would be better than doing nothing. Just that other there seems to be other techniques that are better than Heimlich. I'll defer to your judgement though.