{"id":35249,"date":"2026-03-19T08:53:49","date_gmt":"2026-03-19T12:53:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/?p=35249"},"modified":"2026-03-19T08:53:50","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T12:53:50","slug":"decatur-mayor-tells-of-choking-incident","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/19\/decatur-mayor-tells-of-choking-incident\/","title":{"rendered":"Decatur mayor tells of choking incident"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>By BOB SHRALUKA<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>WZBD.com<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Decatur Mayor Dan Rickord believes everyone, young and old, should learn the Heimlich maneuver.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Stands to reason since since the maneuver may well have saved his life!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI was in a restaurant recently when I had a full-fledged choking incident, it was serious,\u201d he told people at Tuesday night&#8217;s city council meeting in City Hall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large is-resized\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"640\" height=\"651\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wzbd.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Heimlich-dan-rickord.jpg?resize=640%2C651&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-35250\" style=\"aspect-ratio:0.9834115392241094;width:554px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wzbd.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Heimlich-dan-rickord.jpg?resize=1007%2C1024&amp;ssl=1 1007w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wzbd.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Heimlich-dan-rickord.jpg?resize=295%2C300&amp;ssl=1 295w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wzbd.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Heimlich-dan-rickord.jpg?resize=768%2C781&amp;ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wzbd.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Heimlich-dan-rickord.jpg?w=1148&amp;ssl=1 1148w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Scared? Yes he was!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Rickord said he began choking and couldn&#8217;t get his airway cleared. Someone tried the Heimlich maneuver on him but it didn&#8217;t work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIt got the point that I was about to go down,\u201d he continued. \u201cThen John Kintz (president of the Kintz Insurance Agency in Decatur) came running toward me and I began running toward him. \u201cHe did the Heimlich and it didn&#8217;t work the first couple of times. Then he did it very hard and it worked.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"235\" height=\"371\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wzbd.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/unnamed-3.jpg?resize=235%2C371&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-35251\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wzbd.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/unnamed-3.jpg?w=235&amp;ssl=1 235w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wzbd.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/unnamed-3.jpg?resize=190%2C300&amp;ssl=1 190w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 235px) 100vw, 235px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><em>Kintz<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The unidentified food particle went down rather than out, but the only thing that mattered was that Dan was able to breathe freely again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cSo I sure want to thank John,\u201d the mayor said as told of the incident after all business was conducted at the meeting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIt (Heimlich) is something everyone should know how to do. It should be taught to kids in school,\u201d he closed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A Cleveland Clinic site says the following: \u201cThe Heimlich maneuver is a first-aid method for choking that you can use on adults and children. Another name for the Heimlich maneuver is abdominal thrusts, because it involves thrusting into the abdominal area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s a quick and life-saving method, but you should only use it on conscious people who can\u2019t breathe on their own.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By BOB SHRALUKA WZBD.com Decatur Mayor Dan Rickord believes everyone, young and old, should learn the Heimlich maneuver.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":35251,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[14,15,21],"class_list":["post-35249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-decatur","tag-featured","tag-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wzbd.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/unnamed-3.jpg?fit=235%2C371&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35249"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35249\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35252,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35249\/revisions\/35252"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}