A Nurse Passing By Saved Me from a Near Disaster After a Raw Chestnut Got Stuck in My Throat

Choking on Raw Chestnuts
Nearby Nurse Provides Emergency Aid

A woman in her 50s who went to pay respects at a grave choked on a raw chestnut but fortunately escaped danger thanks to emergency first aid from a nearby nurse.

A woman in her 50s who went to pay respects at a grave choked on a chestnut while eating it, but fortunately escaped danger thanks to emergency first aid from a nurse nearby.
[Image source=Pixabay]

At around 1 p.m. on the 29th, Ms. A, a woman in her 50s, visited the House of Remembrance in Geoje-si, Gyeongnam, with her husband. While waiting near the parking lot, she was peeling and eating raw chestnuts in the back seat of the car when suddenly one chestnut got stuck in her throat, making it difficult to breathe properly. Seeing this, her husband pulled her out of the car and tried to give her water.

At that moment, nurse Jeong Seong-gil (24), who was passing by, saw what happened and stopped the husband, then performed the Heimlich maneuver as emergency first aid. The Heimlich maneuver is an emergency procedure that applies strong pressure to the chest to expel foreign objects when the airway is blocked and there is a risk of suffocation. Thanks to this, Ms. A was able to vomit the raw chestnut stuck in her throat and expressed her gratitude to Jeong several times.

Jeong works as a nurse in the emergency room of a general hospital in Tongyeong, Gyeongnam. She said, "If you give water to someone who has a foreign object stuck in their airway, the object can get lodged deeper in the throat or water can enter the airway, worsening the situation. It could have escalated to a situation where 119 had to be called and CPR performed, so it was truly fortunate."