The Man Behind the Maneuver

Summary

Radiolab – "The Man Behind the Maneuver"

Date: March 5, 2013
Hosts: Jad Abumrad, Robert Krulwich
Reported by: Patrick Walters
Main Guest: Dr. Henry Heimlich

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Overview

This Radiolab episode dives into the life and legacy of Dr. Henry Heimlich—the man behind the lifesaving Heimlich maneuver. Reporter Patrick Walters traces his own personal connection to the maneuver, explores Heimlich’s dramatic life, examines the controversy around Heimlich’s later career, and questions how we remember pioneering figures whose contributions are both celebrated and questioned.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Personal Connection: Patrick Walters’ Own Experience

• [01:47] Patrick recalls nearly dying from choking on apple peel as a child, saved by the Heimlich maneuver performed by his school nurse, Mrs. Ennis.
• Realizes he knows nothing about Henry Heimlich and sets off to find out more.

2. The Early Life of Henry Heimlich

• [04:36] As a 21-year-old in 1941, Heimlich survived a train accident and saved a man from drowning, an experience that set a pattern for his career.
  • "The whole engine jumped into the middle of the lake... I jumped in the water and I held him up... For an hour or so." – Dr. Henry Heimlich [05:14]
• Became a thoracic surgeon, innovating to solve life-or-death medical problems.

3. Inventing the Heimlich Chest Valve

• [05:52] Observes soldiers dying from chest wounds and invents a valve to drain blood and air from the chest, saving lives in Vietnam.
  • "I ran to the 5 and 10 cent store, bought a few simple parts, and actually made this tube device..." – Dr. Henry Heimlich [06:11]
  • 4 million units sold since the 1970s.

4. The Birth of the Heimlich Maneuver

• [07:17] In 1972, Heimlich reads about deaths in restaurants—often misdiagnosed as heart attacks but really choking incidents.
• Inspired, he hypothesizes that compressing air in the lungs could expel an obstruction. He tests the idea on an anesthetized dog in his lab.
  • "Took my fist just above the belly button and pressed... nothing... and then on the third try, that beef ball flew right across the room. I knew he had it." – Dr. Heimlich [09:47, 10:05]
• Publishes the maneuver in a medical journal and national newspaper in 1974.

5. Spread and Public Adoption

• [10:26] Within a week, a retiree saves someone using the maneuver after reading about it.
• Heroic stories and celebrity incidents flood Heimlich's mailbox; the maneuver becomes a national phenomenon.
  • "Cher, Goldie Hawn, Walter Matthau, Carrie Fisher, and Ronald Reagan." – Patrick Walters [11:23]
  • "Dear Dr. Heimlich... I might be dead if it wasn’t for you." – Third grader from Kentucky [11:44]

6. Controversial Expansion of the Maneuver’s Use

• [12:22] Dr. Heimlich begins to claim the maneuver can treat asthma attacks and save drowning victims. Medical experts dispute these claims:
  • "There are a lot of misconceptions about it when someone drowns—that their lungs will be full of water... It's important to quickly start CPR..." – Jonathan Epstein [13:37]
  • Heimlich’s insistence leads companies to erroneously teach the maneuver for drowning for years.

7. Radical Medical Experiments

• [14:48] In the 1980s-2000s, Heimlich explores using induced malaria—"malaria therapy"—to treat Lyme disease, cancer, and AIDS.
  • "And I believe that I have a possible cure of AIDS." – Dr. Henry Heimlich [14:48]
  • Malaria therapy condemned as dangerous and scientifically baseless by medical authorities, including Dr. Anthony Fauci.

8. Family Rift and Public Criticism

• [17:00] Heimlich’s son Peter publicly criticizes his father’s experiments as dangerous and starts a campaign against him; the family is divided.
• The show discusses editorial decisions about including Peter’s voice but ultimately honors access conditions.

9. Creative Genius vs. Reckless Maverick?

• Heimlich argues that radical ideas are always initially resisted:
  • "Creative ideas are often attacked because people oppose change or do not understand new concepts... Creativity requires courage." – Dr. Heimlich [18:24, 18:35]
• Son Phil defends his father:
  • "People who have genius and great ideas often, often have to struggle to get their ideas out." – Phil Heimlich [19:01]

10. Reassessment by the Red Cross and Legacy

• [19:27] Recent research suggests that back slaps ("back blows") are as effective as the Heimlich maneuver for choking.
  • "It was very clear that back slaps or back blows... appear to be equally effective as the Heimlich maneuver." – Jonathan Epstein [20:10]
• Red Cross now recommends back blows first and calls it "abdominal thrusts" instead of "the Heimlich maneuver".
  • "This is wrong." – Dr. Heimlich [20:52]
• Heimlich remains proud, feeling immortalized by his maneuver’s name.

11. Full Circle: Thank You to His Rescuer

• [23:15] Patrick calls Mrs. Ennis, the school nurse who saved him, and she reads the letter she wrote to him years ago, poignantly reflecting on the impact of that day.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "That was the first time." – Dr. Henry Heimlich, after saving a man on the train [05:39]
• "That just seems weird." – Jad, reacting to the idea of treating asthma with the Heimlich every week [12:56]
• "This is the symbol that you're choking, right?" – Johnny Carson on national TV, as Heimlich demonstrates the maneuver [11:32]
• "Rose are red, violets are blue, I might be dead if it wasn’t for you." – Third grader's letter to Dr. Heimlich [11:44]
• "It's unbelievable." – Dr. Heimlich, responding to the Red Cross changing its recommendations [20:37]
• "My name means saving lives. And when I’m gone, it’s still going to be the Heimlich maneuver." – Dr. Heimlich [21:26]
• "I think when you said, 'I can breathe,' was one of the happiest moments of my life." – Cindy Ennis, school nurse [24:49]
• "But when I think about my kids... when they learn this thing, it won't be called the Heimlich maneuver. And... I really don't think that I would tell them to call it that." – Patrick Walters [25:18]

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Important Timestamps

• [01:47] Patrick’s choking incident retold
• [04:36] Heimlich’s train disaster heroics
• [06:33] Invention of the triangle valve
• [07:17] Origin story of the Heimlich maneuver
• [11:32] Heimlich on Johnny Carson
• [12:22] Expansion to asthma, drowning, and criticism
• [14:48] Malaria therapy and AIDS claims
• [17:00] Family conflict: Peter vs. Phil Heimlich
• [19:27] Reassessment: back blows as effective as Heimlich maneuver
• [23:15] Patrick calls his childhood rescuer, Mrs. Ennis

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Tone and Style

The episode is a blend of curiosity, admiration, skepticism, and soul-searching. Jad, Robert, and Patrick maintain a conversational, inquisitive tone, mixing wonder with critical thinking, and ultimately balancing personal experience with broader societal shifts in how we remember scientific figures.

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Final Reflection

Radiolab’s exploration of Dr. Henry Heimlich shows both the brilliance and dangers of medical innovation, the value and fallibility of heroes, and the real human lives entwined with their legacies—ultimately raising more questions about how we honor the past while embracing evidence and change.

Transcript

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[Patrick Walters]

Wait, you're listening?

[Jad Abumrad]

Okay.

[Dr. Henry Heimlich]

All right.

[Jad Abumrad]

Okay.

[Dr. Henry Heimlich]

All right.

[Patrick Walters]

You're listening to Radiolab. Radiolab shorts from WNYC.

[Dr. Henry Heimlich]

And npr.

[Jad Abumrad]

Hey, I'm Jad Abumrad.

[Robert Krulwich]

I'm Robert Krulwich.

[Jad Abumrad]

This is Radiolab.

[Robert Krulwich]

This is our podcast. And we're going to be. We're gonna tell you a tale. It's actually about a person that we think we deeply admire. If, by the way, you even paused long enough to admire him at all.

[Jad Abumrad]

Yeah.

[Robert Krulwich]

And the story comes from our own Pat Walters.

[Patrick Walters]

This one is kind of weird. I'm gonna start with just talking about myself.

[Robert Krulwich]

Okay.

[Patrick Walters]

I think this is the closest I've ever come to dying.

[Jad Abumrad]

Really?

[Patrick Walters]

It happened when I was 11. So I was in sixth grade. I was at lunch in the cafeteria, lots of kids milling about, and I was sitting at the table with my best, eating my little packed lunch that my mom had made for me. And I was eating an apple, and all of a sudden I couldn't breathe.

[Jad Abumrad]

You were choking?

[Patrick Walters]

Yeah. And I put my hand up in the air. None of the cafeteria ladies came over and I put both my hands in the air, and they finally came over and dragged me across the hall to the nurses office.

[Robert Krulwich]

You're choking all the way to the nurse?

[Patrick Walters]

All the way to the nurse's office? Yeah.

[Robert Krulwich]

Gasping for air. Kind of choking?

[Patrick Walters]

No, just totally clogged up. Clogged up. And I get over there and someone calls the paramedics.

[Jad Abumrad]

Wait, how much time has passed since you. Since you breathed?

[Patrick Walters]

Like two, two and a half minutes, I think.

[Jad Abumrad]

That long?

[Patrick Walters]

Yeah.

[Dr. Henry Heimlich]

Wow.

[Patrick Walters]

But then the nurse grabs me Wraps her arms around me, jerks me really hard under the ribcage, and this apple peel shoots right across the room.

[Jad Abumrad]

Nice.

[Robert Krulwich]

Like a projectile kind of. Kind of thing.

[Patrick Walters]

Yeah, it was like a cartoon. I mean, I don't actually remember. I have a terrible mem. But I'll piece this together from, you know, talking to my mom. And this story is just this thing that's been around, you know, I've told it a million times. It comes up at family gatherings, and I don't know, maybe a year ago, I was reading some things online about the Heimlich maneuver. I don't even know how I ended up there. And I realized I didn't know who actually is Heimlich. I didn't know anything about him. Like, who is this guy who invented this maneuver that saved my life? And that's when I discovered a story I totally did not expect.

[Dr. Henry Heimlich]

Hello? Hello?

[Patrick Walters]

It's Patrick.

[Cindy Ennis]

You downstairs?

[Dr. Henry Heimlich]

I am.

[Jad Abumrad]

Who's that?

[Patrick Walters]

That's Dr. Heimlich.

[Jad Abumrad]

What?

[Johnny Carson]

I thought you wouldn't.

[Dr. Henry Heimlich]

Take the elevator to 4 and turn left.

[Jad Abumrad]

He's alive? Yeah, I just would have assumed. He died, like, 100 years ago.

[Patrick Walters]

Yeah. So he lives in Cincinnati, and I went to see him because.

[Dr. Henry Heimlich]

You went to see.

[Robert Krulwich]

Does that happen to you every time you, like if I told you this.

[Patrick Walters]

Is what's cool about our job, right?

[Dr. Henry Heimlich]

I guess.

[Patrick Walters]

Oh, I've heard of him.

[Robert Krulwich]

I guess I'll go meet him.

[Patrick Walters]

I kind of wanted to say thanks.

[Dr. Henry Heimlich]

Hello, Carter. Tripp.

[Patrick Walters]

Good to meet you. And I wanted to find out, you know, the story of how he came up with this thing. Can you just say who you are? So we have it on tape.

[Dr. Henry Heimlich]

Dr. Henry Heimlich, of the Heimlich maneuver.

[Patrick Walters]

And many other things that we'll talk about later.

[Dr. Henry Heimlich]

And each of them is saving many, many lives.

[Patrick Walters]

That's a matter of some debate. But let's just start the story at the beginning, and for our purposes. The story starts in the summer of 1941.

[Dr. Henry Heimlich]

Yes.

[Patrick Walters]

Hemlich was 21 years old, and he was on a train heading back to New York City from a summer camp that he worked at upstate. And as the train is going along the shore of this lake, the front end of it jumped the tracks.

[Dr. Henry Heimlich]

The whole engine jumped into the middle of the lake. I jumped off and walked up the front to see if anyone was hurt.

[Patrick Walters]

And as he approached the front of the train, which was sort of sticking in the water, he saw this guy.

[Dr. Henry Heimlich]

Trapped under the water with his feet under the train wheel.

[Patrick Walters]

Like his feet were stuck, and he was Kind of hanging down into the water.

[Dr. Henry Heimlich]

Correct.

[Patrick Walters]

The guy's head was bobbing up and down. He was desperately trying to keep it above the water.

[Dr. Henry Heimlich]

So I jumped in the water and I held him up, kind of hooked.

[Patrick Walters]

His arms under the guy's armpits and lifted his head and shoulders out of the water.

[Dr. Henry Heimlich]

And I hung for a long time.

[Patrick Walters]

For an hour or so.

[Dr. Henry Heimlich]

And.

[Patrick Walters]

And by the time the paramedics arrived and freed the man, a crowd had formed.

[Dr. Henry Heimlich]

Yeah.

[Patrick Walters]

And as Heimlich crawled out of the.

[Dr. Henry Heimlich]

Water, a couple of them. You know, you saved your life. You saved a life.

[Patrick Walters]

That was the first time. After college, Heimlich went to medical school.

[Dr. Henry Heimlich]

And became a thoracic surgeon, a chest surgeon.

[Patrick Walters]

Started saving lives for a living. Then he joined the military.

[Dr. Henry Heimlich]

I was in the Navy.

[Patrick Walters]

Navy surgeon.

[Dr. Henry Heimlich]

Because I like ships in the sea.

[Patrick Walters]

Where he saved more lives. And while he was overseas, he noticed that many times soldiers who got shot died, not necessarily because they bled out, but because the bleeding from the wound would fill their chest and crush their lungs. I'm thinking, there must be a way to solve this.

[Dr. Henry Heimlich]

And one day, it hit him. Why not a valve? So I ran to the 5 and 10 cent store, bought a few simple.

[Patrick Walters]

Parts, and actually made this tube device that you could slip into a wound.

[Dr. Henry Heimlich]

That takes the air out and blood and lets nothing in.

[Patrick Walters]

It's called the Heimlich chest drain valve.

[Dr. Henry Heimlich]

This is a tube, and this is the photo valve.

[Patrick Walters]

He showed me one of them. It's just a small 6 inch tube with a little plastic flap that only lets air go one way. Really simple. But During Vietnam, the US army bought 20,000 of these valves, distributed them to infantrymen.

[Dr. Henry Heimlich]

When your buddy got shot in the chest, you slipped the tube into the chest and it saved his life.

[Patrick Walters]

And they're still around today. I called the company that makes them, and they told me that 4 million have sold since the 1970s, which translates to, like, who knows how many lives saved?

[Jad Abumrad]

Wow. So this dude's amazing.

[Patrick Walters]

Wait, we haven't even gotten to the good part yet. One morning in the winter of 1972 set the scene for me. So you were at that time, you were living. You were living here?

[Dr. Henry Heimlich]

Yes, I was living here.

[Patrick Walters]

Heimlich, he's drinking his coffee, reading the paper, and he happens upon this one article about people who die in restaurants.

[Dr. Henry Heimlich]

In those days, many people who died in restaurants, they were thought to be having heart attacks until an autopsy was done.

[Patrick Walters]

And the article quoted a coroner who'd done a bunch of these autopsies and had Found that actually, no, these people had choked. The article went on to explain that more than 2,500 people, thousands of people, were dying every year from choking.

[Dr. Henry Heimlich]

Yes. I think it was the sixth leading.

[Patrick Walters]

Cause of accidental death, higher on the list than guns.

[Dr. Henry Heimlich]

And the worst thing was that the great majority were in children, and nobody.

[Patrick Walters]

Knew what to do about it. You could, like, thump a person on the back, but some doctors warned that.

[Dr. Henry Heimlich]

If you hit them on the back, the choking object would go deeper into the airway.

[Patrick Walters]

Do you remember if there were people trying to come up with, like, devices? I feel like I read something about.

[Dr. Henry Heimlich]

Yes, there was one who had, like.

[Patrick Walters]

A pair of plastic pliers.

[Dr. Henry Heimlich]

You would jam that in.

[Patrick Walters]

Paw down my throat. Apparently, another guy invented a sort of vacuum that you would use to suck the food out. Not surprisingly, these things just weren't effective. People were getting desperate. I found this little clip from the New York Times, which described this guy whose wife choked on a piece of food in a restaurant. And not knowing what else to do, this guy who happened to be a surgeon, grabbed a steak knife off the table and tried to perform an emergency tracheotomy on her neck. Like, on her?

[Jad Abumrad]

Yeah.

[Robert Krulwich]

And what happened?

[Patrick Walters]

She died in the restaurant. Wow. So Heimlich was reading about all this and being a thoracic surgeon, a chest surgeon, he had an idea.

[Dr. Henry Heimlich]

I realized there was enough air in the lungs. If you could compress that air, push.

[Patrick Walters]

It up against whatever was clogging the.

[Dr. Henry Heimlich]

Windpipe, you could carry the object out of the mouth.

[Patrick Walters]

So he gets a dog.

[Robert Krulwich]

He got a dog.

[Dr. Henry Heimlich]

Yes.

[Patrick Walters]

Where'd you get it?

[Dr. Henry Heimlich]

Oh, we had a laboratory that had some dogs there.

[Patrick Walters]

This wasn't like Fido, the Heimlich family pet.

[Dr. Henry Heimlich]

No, no.

[Patrick Walters]

Laid the dog down on the operating table, and then he jams this piece of meat, probably beef, down the dog's throat.

[Jad Abumrad]

Did he at least sedate the dog.

[Patrick Walters]

Before this dog is anesthetized? And. And he ties a piece of string around the beef in case he needs to pull it out.

[Robert Krulwich]

Okay.

[Jad Abumrad]

Oh.

[Patrick Walters]

But anyway, the clock is ticking. He gets behind the dog.

[Dr. Henry Heimlich]

Took my fist just above the belly button and pressed nothing.

[Patrick Walters]

So he tried again, repeated it.

[Dr. Henry Heimlich]

Nothing.

[Patrick Walters]

And then on the third try, that.

[Dr. Henry Heimlich]

Beef ball flew right across the room. I knew he had it.

[Patrick Walters]

So in 1974, Heimlich wrote up a little description of his maneuver and sent it to a medical journal. Pretty soon, that got picked up by.

[Dr. Henry Heimlich]

A national paper, the Chicago Daily News. And not quite a week later, a.

[Patrick Walters]

Retiree named Isaac Piha, who had just Read about the Heimlich maneuver in the paper.

[Dr. Henry Heimlich]

Came out on his porch, and his neighbor started screaming for help.

[Patrick Walters]

Guy runs over to his neighbor's house, finds his neighbor's wife with her face.

[Dr. Henry Heimlich]

Down on the food.

[Patrick Walters]

And just like he'd read in the.

[Dr. Henry Heimlich]

Newspaper, he did the method, and a big piece of meat flew out of her mouth, and she fully recovered. And so he was recorded as the first one to use the procedure. Pretty soon, stories from around the country.

[Patrick Walters]

Began pouring into Heimlich's mailbox. Los Angeles, California. Fresno, California.

[Dr. Henry Heimlich]

And it got out very quickly.

[Patrick Walters]

There's one about a babysitter saving the kids. She was looking after the whole country. Bangor, Maine. Clearwater, Florida. Here's one about a custodian who saved an 8th grader choking on a ravioli.

[Dr. Henry Heimlich]

You know, they just kept coming in.

[Patrick Walters]

There were stories about celebrities being saved by the Heimlich maneuver.

[Dr. Henry Heimlich]

Different actors and actresses.

[Patrick Walters]

Cher, Goldie Hawn, Walter Matthau, Carrie Fisher, and Ronald Reagan.

[Johnny Carson]

Okay, I am in. This is the symbol that you're choking, right?

[Patrick Walters]

Right. This is Heimlich teaching Johnny Carson how to do the maneuver.

[Johnny Carson]

I'm going to put my arms around your waist.

[Dr. Henry Heimlich]

Oh, yes. Come on over here.

[Patrick Walters]

And I guess you're going to demonstrate. He taught Letterman, too, how to do it. I just want to read you, Dr. Heinlich, one letter that you got from a third grader in Kentucky. This is him on Geraldo. Dear Dr. Heimlich, roses are red, violets are blue. I might be dead if it wasn't for you. Third grader saved from choking on an apple. And if you. And for most of us, I think, like, that's where the story seemed to end, with Heimlich as sort of a national hero. But the story goes on and gets kind of murkier.

[Robert Krulwich]

What do you mean?

[Patrick Walters]

Like, at the height of his fame, Heimlich starts going to medical conferences and claiming that the Heimlich maneuver can be used for more than just choking.

[Johnny Carson]

Now we have a new use for the Heimlich maneuver, and that's its use to stop an asthma attack.

[Jad Abumrad]

Asthma how?

[Patrick Walters]

Because the way he explained it is that when you have an asthma attack, your lungs get filled with a lot of excess mucus, and that if you do the Heimlich maneuver, it will expel the mucus and stop the asthma attack.

[Johnny Carson]

In addition, you can prevent an asthma attack by using the maneuver to keep the mucus out of the lungs. You use it maybe once every week or two.

[Jad Abumrad]

I live with someone who suffers from bad asthma. I'm supposed to give her the Heimlich maneuver once a week to help her with her asthma. That just seems weird.

[Patrick Walters]

Yeah, well, that's. Does that work? No, there's no proof that that works.

[Robert Krulwich]

Huh.

[Patrick Walters]

And at the time, asthma experts attacked him, saying the idea was dangerous and it wasn't just asthma. On tv, Heimlich began to argue that.

[Dr. Henry Heimlich]

You can also save drowning victims with the Heimlich maneuver.

[Johnny Carson]

Mouth to mouth resuscitation is not effective when the lungs are flooded with water. The way to save a drowning victim is to do the Heimlich maneuver first. The lungs will clear after four Heimlich maneuvers. The Heimlich maneuver expels the water from the lungs.

[Patrick Walters]

Does it work? No.

[Jonathan Epstein]

There are a lot of misconceptions about it when someone drowns that their lungs will be full of water.

[Patrick Walters]

This is Jonathan Epstein.

[Jonathan Epstein]

I'm the executive director of Northeast Emergency.

[Patrick Walters]

Medical Services, also a member of the American Red Cross's scientific advisory board. And he says what actually happens in most drowning cases. I didn't know this at all.

[Jonathan Epstein]

Is that the back of the throat will kind of spasm or close off.

[Patrick Walters]

And keep water from getting into the lungs.

[Jonathan Epstein]

It is so important to quickly start that CPR process to replace the oxygen that was lost.

[Patrick Walters]

By giving the Heimlich maneuver, you're not only wasting time that you could be using to put oxygen back into the victim, but you also put them at risk of, like, a vomiting. You do the Heimlich maneuver, they might throw up and inhale their vomit, which could make things even worse.

[Jad Abumrad]

But did people take this idea seriously?

[Patrick Walters]

Yeah. Several major companies that train lifeguards started teaching their students to use the Heimlich maneuver before doing cpr. And for years, thousands of lifeguards were taught to do the Heimlich maneuver first. And as the years went on, Heimlich's ideas got increasingly radical. In the early 1980s, he announced that he might have found a cure for Lyme disease, cancer.

[Dr. Henry Heimlich]

And I believe that I have a possible cure of aids.

[Jad Abumrad]

Aids.

[Patrick Walters]

How do people usually react when you say you have a cure to aids?

[Dr. Henry Heimlich]

I don't say it to the wrong.

[Patrick Walters]

People, because the secret to his cure. Malaria kills more than a million people every year.

[Dr. Henry Heimlich]

Malaria therapy.

[Patrick Walters]

This isn't Heimlich's idea. Originally, he got it from a guy.

[Dr. Henry Heimlich]

Named Wagner of Austria, who, in the.

[Patrick Walters]

Early 20th century, 1918, started treating victims of neurosyphilis by giving them malaria.

[Dr. Henry Heimlich]

And he cured it because the fever.

[Patrick Walters]

Was so severe that the fever from the malaria would kill the neurosyphilis. But not the person.

[Dr. Henry Heimlich]

Correct.

[Patrick Walters]

And based on this work, Quarreg, the guy who came up with this, in.

[Dr. Henry Heimlich]

1927, he won a Nobel Prize for.

[Patrick Walters]

It wasn't long, though, before antibiotics came along and malaria therapy disappeared. But in the early 1980s, Heimlich figured maybe this could work for seemingly intractable diseases like cancer and aids. First thing he tried it out on was Lyme disease. He raised some money, got some volunteers.

[Dr. Henry Heimlich]

Went to the University of Mexico in.

[Patrick Walters]

Mexico City, and he ran this small unregulated clinical trial in which he infected these volunteers with South American malaria. The CDC caught wind of what he was doing, denounced the treatment, called it unsafe. But that did not stop Heimlich. And through the 90s and into the early 2000s, he ran other unregulated trials on cancer and AIDS patients in South China and in Africa, Ethiopia. Dr. Anthony Fauci of the National Institutes of Health says Dr. Heimlich's theory about malaria therapy has been thoroughly debunked by medical science. This is from a report on ABC News that quoted one of the world's leading AIDS researchers saying, there's no scientific reason to believe malaria therapy would be effective against aids, and it does have the fundamental potential of actually killing you. That is a big risk to put a person through in an experiment in which there's no fundamental basis to even imagine that it would work. What happened with Peter, and the criticism wasn't just coming from medical experts.

[Phil Heimlich]

I have absolutely no idea. Absolutely no idea.

[Patrick Walters]

This is Heimlich's eldest son, Phil. He explained to me that several years ago, his little brother Peter came out and began publicly condemning his dad's ideas. He launched a website and started sending emails to reporters, leading eventually to dozens of articles, most of which were critical of his father.

[Phil Heimlich]

Why does a son do that? I have no idea.

[Patrick Walters]

When I called Peter, he told me that he didn't do it for any personal reasons, but because he felt his dad's ideas were dangerous, that they were putting people's lives at risk. And you told me, repeat for me. Phil didn't want his father to have to deal with questions about Peter, basically.

[Phil Heimlich]

Because of the pain that this has caused my parents.

[Patrick Walters]

In fact, he wouldn't even give us access to his father unless we agreed to that.

[Phil Heimlich]

I just. I just don't want my parents to go through that.

[Patrick Walters]

Phil also had another condition, that we not include Peter's voice. We thought he'd waived that condition in a subsequent interview, and therefore we did include Peter's voice in the original version of the story. But Phil didn't see it that way. Even though some ambiguity remains, we've decided to resolve the matter by respecting Phil's understanding of our agreement for accessing his dad and removing Peter's voice from the story. We should say, though, that even though we removed Peter's voice, this version of the story contains the same facts as the original. Anyway, the whole family drama aside, Heimlich was happy to address his other critics. He said, the way he sees it.

[Dr. Henry Heimlich]

Creative ideas are often attacked because people oppose change or do not understand new concepts.

[Patrick Walters]

This is from an article Heimlich wrote about his career for the Encyclopedia Britannica.

[Dr. Henry Heimlich]

When a prominent discovery is revealed, particularly if it provides an obvious and simple answer to an important question, experts who have worked for years unsuccessfully on the same problem may lash out at the creator and the idea because they must themselves do not find the solution. Creativity requires courage.

[Phil Heimlich]

People who have genius and great ideas often, often have to struggle to get their ideas out.

[Patrick Walters]

That's Phil again. And he disagrees with his brother Peter when it comes to his dad's work.

[Jonathan Epstein]

Yeah.

[Patrick Walters]

In fact, they don't even really talk anymore.

[Phil Heimlich]

I trust my father's judgment. I trust the way his mind works. And I trust his ability to find simple stories, solutions to very difficult problems.

[Patrick Walters]

And everybody seems to agree that his most famous solution, the Heimlich maneuver itself, is an incredibly effective one. But lately, some people have started to question whether it's the best one. In the end of my conversation with.

[Jonathan Epstein]

John Epstein and the American Red Cross.

[Patrick Walters]

The Red Cross guy that we talked to before, he told me that every five years, all the major life saving organizations worldwide get together and review their guidelines for all different kinds of rescues.

[Jonathan Epstein]

Exhaustive scientific research process. They look over case reports and case.

[Patrick Walters]

Studies, controlled experiments on animals and cadavers. And Epstein told me that two reviews.

[Jonathan Epstein]

Ago, in 2005, the report yielded some.

[Patrick Walters]

New information about choking.

[Jonathan Epstein]

It was very clear that back slaps.

[Patrick Walters]

Or back blows, just thumping somebody on the back between their shoulder blades, appear to be equally effective as the Heimlich maneuver.

[Dr. Henry Heimlich]

Really?

[Patrick Walters]

In fact, the Red Cross, upon finding this out, went so far as to change their recommendation for what you should do when you find someone choking from just do the Heimlich maneuver to first hit someone in the back five times, then do the Heimlich maneuver.

[Jonathan Epstein]

Yes.

[Dr. Henry Heimlich]

Nonsense. It's unbelievable.

[Patrick Walters]

And also, the Red Cross no longer calls it the Heimlich maneuver.

[Dr. Henry Heimlich]

Whoa.

[Jad Abumrad]

What do they call it?

[Robert Krulwich]

What do they call it?

[Jonathan Epstein]

Abdominal thrusts.

[Jad Abumrad]

Abdominal thrusts.

[Dr. Henry Heimlich]

This is wrong.

[Patrick Walters]

And as I sat there With Heimlich, I did start to wonder, like, how will we remember this guy? Will we remember this guy? I mean, does do those bad things that he did later in his career in any way put his legacy as a lifesaver in jeopardy? When I told people I was coming here, a lot of people reacted with wonderment that you're still here. People thought you'd been dead for 100 years.

[Dr. Henry Heimlich]

That makes me feel very good.

[Patrick Walters]

Makes you feel good?

[Dr. Henry Heimlich]

Yes. My name is something that they just know. They just know it so well that it is so fixed established that these handful of people who are trying to do harm really don't mean anything. I mean, to me right now, it's a great pleasure to know my name means saving lives. And when I'm gone, it's still going to be the Heimlich maneuver and it's still going to be saving lives. I could just pull up my Google alert with the name Heimlich on it.

[Patrick Walters]

Yeah, could you? Heimlich has a Google alert that he checks pretty much every day here.

[Dr. Henry Heimlich]

Sycamore boy saves life. A friend choking on atomic fireball. Custodian recognized for saving choking girl.

[Patrick Walters]

You find dozens, hundreds of these stories of people being saved by the Heimlich maneuver.

[Dr. Henry Heimlich]

Off duty police officer saves neighbors life.

[Patrick Walters]

You don't find a lot of stories about the controversy surrounding drowning and malaria therapy or the Red Cross's new guidelines.

[Dr. Henry Heimlich]

Oregon football player performs harm Work on Man at Beef Bowl.

[Patrick Walters]

This is just from one week.

[Dr. Henry Heimlich]

Yeah.

[Patrick Walters]

And flipping through these stories, it does give you the sense that this guy and his maneuver have somehow become kind of immortal, which, on the one hand, I kind of get.

[Cindy Ennis]

Hello?

[Patrick Walters]

Hello, is this Mrs. Ennis?

[Cindy Ennis]

Yep.

[Patrick Walters]

This is Pat Walters. I don't. I don't know if you remember me, but just before I finished making the story, I found Mrs. Ennis, the nurse who gave me the Heimlich maneuver when I was 11.

[Cindy Ennis]

That was lunchtime, wasn't it?

[Patrick Walters]

It was lunchtime, yeah.

[Cindy Ennis]

An apple.

[Patrick Walters]

It was an apple, yeah.

[Cindy Ennis]

Yeah.

[Patrick Walters]

And after she gave me the Heimlich maneuver, I sent her a thank you note and she sent me back this letter.

[Cindy Ennis]

All right, tell me when to start.

[Patrick Walters]

Whenever you're ready.

[Cindy Ennis]

Okay. Right now. Dear Patrick, when I accepted a job as a school nurse in the Wilson School District 33 years ago, I told myself that I would never allow anything to happen to. To children in my care. To my sorrow, I have watched Whitfield children I loved die of cystic fibrosis, AIDS accidents and cancer. I think when you said, I can breathe was one of the happiest moments of my life. I treasure yours and your parents letter and the privilege of being your school school nurse. Sincerely and with a big hug, Cindy Ennis, rn.

[Patrick Walters]

I get a little choked up just listening to you read that to me. I feel.

[Cindy Ennis]

I feel it very sincerely, Patrick. I truly do. It was from the heart.

[Patrick Walters]

I think what I take away from this is that, like, I'll always think of that thing I call the Heimlich maneuver as the Heimlich maneuver, and so will Mrs. Ennis. But when I think about my kids, I don't have any kids. But like the kids I might have someday, when they learn this thing, it won't be called the Heimlich maneuver. And based on what I know now, I really don't think that I would tell them to call it that.

[Dr. Henry Heimlich]

Even.

[Jad Abumrad]

Though it saved your life.

[Dr. Henry Heimlich]

Yeah.

[Robert Krulwich]

Thank you, Patrick.

[Jad Abumrad]

Thanks, Pat. Thank you guys for listening.

[Patrick Walters]

Yeah.

[Jad Abumrad]

Hello, world. This is Jamie from Glasgow in Scotland. Radiolab is supported in part by the National Science foundation and by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Enhancing public understanding of science and technology in the modern world. More information about [e-mail]. thank you.