Choking Patient

Nurses General Nursing

Published

Just out of curiosity....I retook my BLS class and it goes over the heimlich. Thats fine and dandy if you are in a mall or a public place.

But, What if a patient in bed is choking? What do we do and how?

The BLS instructor danced around my question and gave some remark about looking at hospital policy -

Thankfully this has never happened to me (yet) but if it happened to any of you - let me know.

I had a male resident who started choking on his meds. He was a big man and non ambulatory. He started coughing really bad and knew was struggling. I put him on high fowler's..eventually he was able to clear his throat. If he continued to be in distress my next move would have been to get on the bed and straddle him somewhat to do an abdominal thrust and get/ scream for back up.

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Specializes in LTC, Medical, Telemetry.

Hm.... if they're eating, I hope they are sitting up and not laying flat in a hospital bed.

Never had this happen on the floor, but happened a few times in LTC.... family would always bring in inappropriate food and hide it in the room so it wouldn't get confiscated - turns out, nurses don't want them to eat it for a reason :icon_roll

If you can get behind them, great! If you can't (murphy's law dictates this is ALWAYS the case apparently), you would treat it as if they are flat on the ground. I am hesitant to tell you to try to get them to stand up, because depending on how long they are choking and how good you are at the heimlich maneuver, they will drop. Now you have a choking victim with a head injury.

If you look at the heimlich maneuver, there is a technique for when they are on the ground. It is like chest compressions at an angle, same technique as from behind but you are in front instead. I have had to do this before and it does work.

If it doesn't, you'll be going into CPR shortly anyway. Chest compressions will help dislodge it as well - a tip I had from a BLS instructor, however I have not personally verified this.

Somebody else mentioned that there is suction available at bedside -- absolutely take advantage of your resources.

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Specializes in Critical Care, ED, Cath lab, CTPAC,Trauma.
Whew! I sooooo thought that somebody had snapped and actually choked a patient. I mean, I could understand being driven to do it but was kinda curious if someone actually had done it.

(nothing to see here.... move along)

:hhmth:As only an ED nurse could!!!!!!!:yeah::yeah::yeah::yeah:

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Specializes in Trauma, Teaching.

Had an intoxicated fellow eating a sandwich (ff in the ED, they come in by EMS and the first thing they want is a sandwich) with the head of the bed up. Was too drunk to stay awake long enough to chew and swallow, I noticed him choking and tried to grab some gloves. Another nurse just grabbed him by the shoulders, lifted then slammed him back against the stretcher. Food popped right out.

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Specializes in Emergency/Cath Lab.

I did what came natural to my thinking. I threw their legs off the edge of the bed, sat them up, got behind them and did the heimlich. I basically removed the bed from the picture. Worked rather well too.

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