(a) smack on the upper part of the back

[JACEK1]

Hello.

Suppose that someone gags on some food. What you do then is (to) smack somebody on the upper part of the back/give somebody a smack on the upper part of the back. Is this the way you would call the activity of hitting somebody in the back in an effort to save the victim.

Thank you.

 

[jutfrank]

The trainer on the first aid course I recently did told me to deliver repeated blows between the shoulder blades.

 

[JACEK1]

To me, this expression is very professional.

 

[Skrej]

Yes, 'smack' is far more colloquial and informal than 'deliver repeated blows'.

It also is potentially misleading -'smack' sounds like the age-old useless technique of simply pounding randomly on somebody's back, versus the targeted sticking technique.

As I understand it, the striking blows are used only for smaller infants. With adults, you use the Heimlich maneuver.

I could be incorrect on that note, my last formal CPR training was as a teenager. Perhaps techniques have changed.

 

[jutfrank]

On first aid courses these days, in the UK, they advise the striking technique as a first course of action and then if that fails to use the Heimlich manouevre (though to my mild disappointment they don't use that term).

 

[JACEK1]

Heimlich maneuvre was the first thing that came to mind but I decided to ask a question about the technique that is not often used in Poland, namely, the activity of delivering repeated blows on the victim's back with the palm of your hand the momemt you see them gagging.

 

[jutfrank]

The appropriate word is choking, by the way, not gagging.

 

[GoesStation]

Dr. Heimlich was in the news recently because, at the age of 96, he rescued a choking woman with the maneuver he invented. It was the first time he'd ever used it.