JoAnn Okin knew how to do the Heimlich maneuver. The 69-year-old resident of Kingston, N.Y., had used it successfully on other people who were choking. But she couldn’t save her husband, Stuart, when a piece of pastry lodged deep in his trachea last month. Neither could a bystander.Paramedics, who arrived in a few minutes, did no better. Unable to insert a breathing tube past the obstruction, they administered high-pressure oxygen, but Stuart Okin soon lapsed into respiratory and cardiac arrest and, after several days on life support, died on his 72nd birthday.Hospital personnel reassured JoAnn Okin that she had done everything right, but the Heimlich didn’t work because the obstruction was too far down.Happy stories are often told about the thousands of people each year who are saved by the Heimlich maneuver, like Steve John, a PGA Tour official who was rescued last year by director and actor Clint Eastwood. In 1976 the Heimlich was used to clear a tracheal obstruction in Ronald Reaga...
