[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 17 (Wednesday, February 1, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S590-S591]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     REMEMBERING DR. HENRY HEIMLICH

  Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, today I wish to pay tribute to the life 
of a famous Ohioan, Dr. Henry Heimlich.
  The son of Jewish immigrants who fled Central and Eastern Europe for 
a better life in America, Henry Judah Heimlich spent his life helping 
others.
  As a 21-year-old medical student, he was riding a train from 
Connecticut to New York City when the train derailed. Henry rescued one 
of his fellow passengers that day. That was the first of the many lives 
he would save.
  By 23, he had his medical degree. Two years later, he left his 
internship at Boston City Hospital to serve in the Navy during World 
War II. He was sent to treat American Marines and Chinese soldiers in 
the Gobi desert of Inner Mongolia, behind Japanese lines. In those 
rugged conditions, he came up with a new solution to help there 
hundreds of people there who had a certain bacterial infection that 
caused blindness.
  In 1957, after sketching the idea on the back of a napkin, he became 
the first American doctor to repair a damaged esophagus using a tube 
made from the patient's stomach. A year later, it became a standard 
procedure in the United States.
  In 1964, based on those experiences during World War II operating 
without electricity in the Gobi desert, he invented the Heimlich chest 
drain valve, which drained blood and air out of the chest to help those 
with gunshot wounds or collapsed lungs. It all started with a toy 
noisemaker he found at a dime store. He noticed that the toy had a 
flutter valve, which he realized could be used as a model for a valve 
to prevent fluids from flowing back into the lungs.
  This invention was immediately used to save the lives of American 
soldiers serving in Vietnam, and more than 4 million of these valves 
have sold since then.
  In 1968, Dr. Heimlich moved to my hometown of Cincinnati and became 
surgery director of Jewish Hospital and professor of surgery at the 
University of Cincinnati. He taught at UC until 1978, when he became a 
professor of advanced clinical science at Cincinnati's Xavier 
University. He taught at Xavier until 1989.
  In 1974, he became famous around the world for finding a better way 
to save someone from choking.
  At that time, some 4,000 Americans were dying every year from 
choking, and it was one of the leading causes of accidental death. Many 
of those victims were kids who choked on small toys.
  With a great feeling of compassion for them, Dr. Heimlich set out to 
find a solution. Whatever it was, it would have to be a quick and 
efficient solution because, within just 4 minutes of being deprived of 
oxygen, the brain becomes irreversibly damaged.
  Dr. Heimlich thought that the conventional techniques used at that 
time were not just ineffective but actually harmful because they risked 
pushing the blockage farther down the windpipe, making the problem 
worse.
  At Jewish Hospital in Cincinnati, Dr. Heimlich led 2 years of 
research that discovered a new, more effective technique of dislodging 
objects from the esophagus: putting pressure just below the diaphragm 
to create upward air pressure in the chest. Just days after it was made 
public, a restaurant owner in Washington State used it to save 
someone's life.
  It was simple and easy--so simple that, within a few years, a 5-year-
old boy in Massachusetts used it to save one of his friends. You can 
even use it on yourself if necessary.
  As Dr. Heimlich put it, ``the best thing about it is that it allows 
anyone to use it to save a life.'' Everyone can and should learn this 
technique.

[[Page S591]]

  Letters began pouring in. Within a year, Dr. Heimlich received some 
200 from people around the country who had successfully used the 
Heimlich maneuver to save a life and the American Medical Association 
had endorsed it. Within 2 years, the American Red Cross recommended it.
  The Heimlich maneuver is estimated by some to have saved as many as 
50,000 or even 100,000 lives just in America--not to mention countless 
others around the world.
  To put a face to these numbers, consider that the Heimlich maneuver 
has saved the lives of future-President Ronald Reagan in 1976. It has 
saved the lives of New York City Mayor Ed Koch, basketball commentator 
Dick Vitale, news anchorman John Chancellor, television personality 
Simon Cowell, as well as actors Walter Matthau, Elizabeth Taylor, 
Marlene Dietrich, Carrie Fisher, Goldie Hawn, Nicole Kidman, and Halle 
Berry, and so many other people who have touched our lives. The 
maneuver has been used by Cincinnati Reds third basemen Todd Frazier, 
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak at Camp David, and an 83-year-old 
Clint Eastwood.
  We have all benefited from this innovative technique.
  This discovery, I think, really sums up Dr. Heimlich's life, because 
he used to say that his focus was to find ``simple, creative solutions 
to seemingly insurmountable health and medical problems.'' Time and 
again, he did just that, authoring more than 100 scientific papers and 
presenting more than 250 medical lectures over his lifetime.
  In 1980, he invented the MicroTrach, a more efficient portable oxygen 
system that, because of its smaller size, gave patients more mobility. 
In 1981, Dr. Heimlich received the ``Distinguished Service Award'' from 
his colleagues with the American Society of Abdominal Surgeons, and he 
received the 1984 ``Arthur Lasker Award for Public Service'' for his 
``simple, practical, cost-free solution to a life-threatening 
emergency, requiring neither great strength, [nor] special equipment 
[n]or elaborate training.''
  In 1985, Surgeon General C. Everett Koop declared that the Heimlich 
maneuver was the best method to be used when someone is choking. From 
1986 to 2005, the American Red Cross and the American Heart Association 
issued the same recommendation.
  Dr. Heimlich's medical career lasted some 70 years. In his final 
years, he remained active, swimming and exercising regularly. Living at 
a retirement home run by Episcopal Retirement Services in Cincinnati, 
he saved the life of an 87-year-old fellow resident named Patty Ris 
this past May using his famous maneuver.
  Dr. Heimlich passed away on December 17 at age 96 at Christ Hospital 
in Cincinnati. He was married to his wonderful wife, Jane, for 61 
years, and he is survived by his four children and three grandchildren.
  His son Phil is a good friend of mine and a former Cincinnati city 
councilman and Hamilton County commissioner.
  Jane and I send our condolences to our friends in the Heimlich 
family. We are grateful for Dr. Heimlich's work and for his life. We 
will miss him, but even in his absence, his ideas will live on and 
continue to save lives.
  Thank you.

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