When Lisa started choking and couldn’t breathe, she thought she was going to die. Here’s how she saved her own life – and it’s a vital tip we could all use

Lisa Bennett was halfway through her lunch recently when a piece of chicken became lodged in her throat.

Alone at home, Lisa, who runs a blanket-making business, was soon gasping for breath and started to panic. 

She tried retching and leaning over, but the chicken remained stubbornly in place.

‘I could make no noise and get no air. I was terrified,’ says Lisa, 60. ‘I began to feel dizzy and I knew I had probably seconds before I’d hit the floor.’

She feared she would never see her three grown-up sons and eight grandchildren again.

Lisa tried to hit herself on the back, but it did nothing.

Then she had the idea to try to perform the Heimlich manoeuvre (now known as abdominal thrusts) on herself. As a trained nurse, she had seen this done before.

‘I knew this was my last hope,’ says Lisa. ‘I was alone. No one could save me. I had to try doing it on myself.’

Using the last bit of strength she had, Lisa jammed her abdomen against the edge of a breakfast bar stool.

It was on the third attempt that the food finally shot out and Lisa gratefully inhaled a lungful of air.

‘Doing that saved my life,’ says Lisa, from the US state of Pennsylvania.

It could so easily have ended differently.

According to the Office for National Statistics, between 200 and 300 people die each year in the UK due to choking, which occurs when an object blocks the windpipe, cutting off the air supply.

While children and the elderly are most at risk, it can happen to anyone – as Lisa discovered. It can prove fatal within minutes. And it’s more common than you might think.

On top of the hundreds who die annually, according to research by St John Ambulance, ‘a third of people say they’ve choked to the point of panic because they couldn’t breathe’, says its chief medical officer, Professor Andrew Hartle.

Professor Hartle, who is also a consultant anaesthetist at St Mary’s Hospital in London, says people can choke on anything – even their own saliva – but according to research by the first-aid charity, the top culprits are meat, sweets, nuts, pizza and fruit.

Young children are especially at risk as they put things such as small toys in their mouths out of natural curiosity. Older people, meanwhile, lose muscle tone in their mouth and throat and start to produce less saliva, all of which increases the risk of food lodging in the throat.

However, despite being ‘a relatively common occurrence’, Professor Hartle says ‘many people don’t recognise that choking is a medical emergency and can become fatal within minutes if the blockage isn’t cleared’.

What’s more, he says, ‘less than half of people in this country know the correct first aid for choking – that is, how to give firm back blows and abdominal thrusts’.

Lisa is eternally grateful that as a former nurse – she left the profession 30 years ago – she knew how to do the thrusts, because she’s not sure she would have survived otherwise.

It was in August this year that she had her choking incident – and she admits that, at the time, she was bolting down her food.

She says: ‘I always eat fast. I’m always on the go, planning the next thing, so I’ll admit I wasn’t taking my time.

‘My husband Jim was out and it’s just the two of us at home, so I sat down to a chicken pasta dish.’

Lisa was a few mouthfuls in when she realised she had something stuck in her throat and couldn’t breathe.

She recalls: ‘There was no air movement in or out. The following week my grown-up kids and grandchildren were coming over for my mother’s 90th birthday and I just had this thought: “My son will be coming to attend my funeral.”‘

Lisa tried to cough, but when that didn’t work she attempted the abdominal thrusts.

‘I had seen the manoeuvre done many times but always on other people,’ she says.

Staggering around her kitchen, Lisa found a tall, metal bar stool. ‘I slammed myself against the hard edge of the back of it. It didn’t work. I hadn’t done it hard enough. I knew it was now or never,’ she says.

‘I turned the sharp edge of the back support of the stool towards me and slammed myself against it with such force it actually hurt. I did it once, twice, still unable to breathe.

‘I did it one last go with huge force – and on the third time, when I really thought I would die, the food flew out.’ Lisa then started crying in shock over how she had almost died.

If you are alone and start choking, the first thing to do is call 999 immediately, says Professor Hartle.

And if you can’t speak, try to make sounds or tap your phone’s keypad so they know you’re there. ‘The operator should be able to locate you and send help,’ he adds.

The next stage is to try to cough forcefully to remove the blockage – and if that fails you can attempt abdominal thrusts on yourself.

You do this by placing one hand in a clenched fist between your belly button and the bottom of your chest.

With your other hand, grasp your fist and pull sharply inwards and upwards.

Lisa’s abdomen was covered in bruises from the force with which she threw herself against the metal bar stools.

She says: ‘It hurt for a few days and turned blue but I didn’t care. I was alive!

‘I now realise how dangerous eating fast can be and how I could have died that day.

‘When Jim came in later that day I told him what had happened and he just gasped and stared. Then he hugged me and we both just said “Thank God”.’

Now Lisa takes time to chew her food slowly and properly.

‘I know it’s all too easy to choke,’ she says.