All choked up

0 Comments | Insight on the News, May 17, 1999 | by Lisa Anderson, | Stephen Goode

It probably shouldn't become a habit, but at a restaurant in suburban Osaka, Japan, last month the 25-year-old granddaughter of a man who was choking on a piece of the Japanese delicacy known as Devil's Tongue saved her grandfather's life by sticking a vacuum-cleaner tube down his throat and quickly dislodging the offending morsel.

The relatives dining with the choking man became frantic after he collapsed unconscious while eating sukiyaki on a Saturday night. He had been chewing on the gray, spongy -- and very chewy -- paste made from arum root, according to a dispatch from Reuters.

An emergency dispatcher reached by telephone offered several solutions to save the man's life, none of which worked. Then the dispatcher, at his wit's end, told the granddaughter to try the vacuum cleaner, which sucked out the cause of distress like a charm. The elderly gentleman walked out of the restaurant breathing like nothing had happened, a local official said.