Clubhouse

Posters put the squeeze on choking

If you saw someone choking, would you know what to do? You would if Anita McFarlane has visited and posted step-by-step instructions to your wall. The Leisure World, Silver Spring, Maryland, Kiwanian, along with Kiwanians in the Capital District’s Division 17, has given out more than 1,900 choking emergency posters.

Step-by-step instructions detail how to assist a choking victim.

It started with a phone call to her grandson.

“I asked him how his day was,” Anita recalls, “and he told me about a girl who had choked to death that day in the cafeteria. I got the chills, and I just couldn’t forget it.”

So, Anita called the board of education to find out how teachers, staff, and students are educated in choking emergencies—and who among them already had been trained. And, when she remembered seeing a poster on choking, she called the Red Cross.

She also secured support—and money—from her Kiwanis division.

“When I asked lieutenant governor Gary Bowell about involving Division 17, he said, ‘Anita, if we save one life, that’s all that matters.’”

Now, working with the Red Cross for the posters, Anita provides the informative posters wherever food is served—including schools, gated retirement communities, and shelters for the homeless. She also gives them to those going through her county’s early child care-giving training.

“It just mushroomed, and now everyone knows about it,” she says.