PEDIATRICS Vol. 71 No. 6 June 1983, pp. 983-984
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Back Blows and Choking

HENRY J. HEIMLICH MD1

1 Xavier University, Cincinnati, OH 45207

In Reply.—

Day and colleagues1 at tye Yale University School of Medicine reported studies proving that back blows propel a foreign body downward and backward into the throat or larynx in a direction toward the lung at a force of 3 g. Day et attributed this finding to Newton's Third Law of Motion: "To every action there is always opposed an equal reaction." They conclude that, in a choking person, "in the case of a partial obstruction, a back blow could transform the situation into one of compleete blockage."