She Doesn't Swallow

Today we celebrated our first glorious spring weekend day with a barbeque at my mom's house.  It was also my grandpas and my youngest brothers 21st  birthday.   When we arrived mom was already serving food.  I grabbed a plate of carne asada and sat down to talk to my brothers girlfriend.  I promptly stuffed my second bite in my mouth, swallowed and immediately felt the meat get lodged in my throat.  At first I calmly tried to swallow harder.  Then I politely excused myself from the table and tried coughing it out.  By this time Eric was at my side, gently pounding my back.  I continued to cough and then I started to cough up phlegm.  Regardless of what was coming out, the meat continued to stay in.  At this point, I heard Eric tell my mom to call 911.  I nodded my head and confirmed that calling 911 was a good idea, all the while continuing to cough and gasp for air. 

By then, Eric started to Heimlich maneuver, to no avail.  Then my mom tried.  Then my uncle.  Eric talked to the 911 operator and we heard the ambulance in the distance.  By this time my brother and his friend Scott arrived home from golfing.  My brother walked in and immediately started saying " what the fuck is wrong?"  I could hear him being totally alarmed and I wanted to turn around and tell him I was okay.  Clearly I wasn't, and I couldn't talk and I began to panic.  I continued to cough and gasp and I was beginning to really worry that I was going to pass out.  Scott, my brother's friend is an EMT/Firefighter and he gave me the heimlich maneuver as well, really hard.  By the second time I was certain he was going to crack my ribs and brushed him away.  I continued to semi-throw up massive phlegm and struggled to breath. 

Around this time the paramedic arrived.  He began to give me the heimlich maneuver as well, again to no avail.  He tried  3 or 4 times before he walked me out to the ambulance while I continued to choke.  Literally he walked me out while performing the heimlich. 

There was some confusion as to who was going to ride in the ambulance with me.  I know my mom wanted to go and jumped in the front seat, but rightfully it should have been Eric.  He jumped in the car with my uncle and the ambulance took off. 

The paramedic handed me some gauze and told me I could throw up any where, if I could manage to vomit.  I was trying to maintain my dignity and bent over the trash can and continued to try to cough.  The paramedic, Ben, began to take out forceps and was going to manually extract the meat. 

Suddenly, I coughed and all the sudden the meat went down my throat.  It just went down!  I turned around and said, "I'm fine, it went down!".  We were only a block away from my mom's house and I stopped choking! They pulled over and they assessed me; took my blood pressure, listened to my heart, yadda, yadda.  Mom went home to check on Kayla, who was rightfully freaking out. 

I was mortified!  The ambulance made me sign some paperwork and they took us home.  Ben the paramedic came in to tease Scott about giving me the Heimlich so hard.  In fact, the joke for the rest of the night was that Scott gave it to me hard from behind! 

The weirdest thing was that I was super cognizant of everything going around me.  I could hear every conversation and I wanted to respond.  The hardest part was keeping my dignity while choking.  There is just no attractive way to almost die.  Although, the family did give me props on perfectly balancing in my heels and my brother's girlfriend tied my hair back at some point. 

So, I didn't die, thank goodness.  My throat is sore, my ribs hurt, but I am not in tomorrow's obituaries!