No one helped, as brother almost died

To the editor: This past Friday my brother and his girlfriend went to a restaurant for dinner. She went up to get more bread, and when she returned she realized he had a blank look on his face. He opened his mouth, trying to cough, but he could not talk and had obvious difficulty breathing.

She realized he was choking. She ran to the back and screamed into the kitchen, "Somebody help me! My boyfriend is choking!" This brought an employee to the table, as well as a couple of bystanders.

The employee kept asking if she should call an ambulance. Now, when I hear "Help, my boyfriend is choking," a call to 911 would be my first action. But this employee proceeded to ask if he could breathe (and did not call for an ambulance).

In the meantime, his girlfriend is asking for help. There were families around, people old enough to know what to do when someone is choking. Would you believe it, not a single person got up from their seat to see if they could be of assistance.

His girlfriend is close to a foot shorter than him and had not been recently trained in the Heimlich. But, seeing that it was clear not a single person was capable of doing anything, she got him out of the chair and did what she thought may be close to the Heimlich.

After a while, he coughed up a piece of food and was able to breathe again, after almost two minutes of choking.

I am completely and utterly astonished that a thing like this can happen. It is required that a visual/poster at least be in a restaurant to show how to help a person who is choking. And, nobody in the entire place knew the Heimlich?

My brother almost died because of the ignorance and ridiculous coldness of all of these people. I thank God somebody was watching over him that day and gave his girlfriend the courage to try what she could while everyone else stood by, not so much as lifting a finger.

Apparently, we fail to train our restaurant employees in such things as common sense. When someone says, "Help," maybe next time you will get out of your seat and do something instead of sitting by and watching what could have been a truly tragic situation.

Jillian Knuerr

Rolling Meadows