Heimlich Cop Rescues Motorist Choking on Sausage

A motorist blew through a red light and was pulled over. However, that may have saved her life. INSIDE EDITION has the story.

A motorist was pulled over for running a red light. Pretty routine, right? In recent footage, an officer approached a car and realized the driver was choking.

The officer asked, "Hey how you doing? Are you choking?"

He tried to pat her on the back but it didn't help.

"Are you alright?" he asked.

Then he pulled the woman from the car and began the Heimlich maneuver. The culprit? A piece of sausage sandwich which had lodged in her throat.

The woman was so grateful she gave the officer a big hug.  

Jason Gates is the public safety officer from Kalamazoo, Michigan who came to the motorist's rescue.

INSIDE EDITION's Les Trent asked, "So you could tell as soon as you saw her that she was in some kind of distress?"

"Yeah, I thought she might be trying to get out of a ticket, which people do strange things to get out of tickets, but I quickly realized she was legitimately choking on something," said Gates.

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Gates said this is the first time he has used the Heimlich maneuver so his training came in handy. 

"EMS stuff is part of what I'm trained to do. I'm just glad that I got taught it and it worked," said Gates.

Overwhelmed by the ordeal, the woman could be heard crying as she embraced officer Gates.

A happy ending for this woman, but every year, 4,000 people die from choking on food and other objects.

These deaths are preventable if more people knew how to properly administer the Heimlich maneuver. 

Dr. Christopher Reverte of Mount Sinai showed INSIDE EDITION the proper way to admister this life saving technique.

"I make a fist and place it above the belly button. It's below the rib cage because you actually want to go underneath the ribcage and apply forceful thrusts. So in and up," said Dr. Reverte.

But what do you do if you are choking and you are all alone?

"You can lean over a chair, an object like this, and you lean over and you push down and then up at the same time. So it's the same kind of forceful motion that you want to push in and then push the object up," said Dr. Reverte.

Thankfully for the motorist she not only walked away with her life, but officer Gates also allowed her to walk away without a ticket.