Doctor saves woman's life with penknife and pen

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/25/man-saves-womans-life-penknife

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A doctor in California performed a life-saving tracheotomy using just a penknife and a pen on a diner who was choking on a piece of meat.

Dr Royce Johnson, chief of infectious diseases at the Kern medical centre in Bakersfield, cleared Pauline Larwood's blocked airway at the Mark restaurant in the city, the Bakersfield Californian reported on Tuesday.

Some of the nation's top doctors, in town for a symposium on valley fever, were in the restaurant.

A Bakersfield assemblywoman, Shannon Grove, said she and her husband were seated at a table with Larwood and her husband on Monday when she started choking.

Grove said her husband ran to Larwood and tried to perform the Heimlich manoeuvre. He called for a doctor and Johnson attempted the technique as well. "She had already started turning blue," Grove said.

After the procedure failed to open her airway, Grove called emergency dispatchers and said she watched in amazement as Larwood was laid back in a chair and Johnson used a friend's penknife to make an incision in her throat.

"He didn't scream; he just said, 'I need a knife,'" Grove said.

As several physicians gathered around Larwood, Johnson then broke a pen in half and inserted the hollow cylinder to use as a breathing tube.

The procedure was successful and Larwood was taken to hospital. Her son said on Tuesday that she was doing fine.

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