Leslie: 'I was visiting my best friend, Lucy, in Totnes, Devon, and we went to a gastropub with a group of friends.
I ordered the sea bass. We were all chatting when, all of a sudden, I felt something get caught in my throat and I started coughing. I got up and kept coughing, becoming more and more scared.
Everyone carried on with their meals as I wasn’t making much noise, but Lucy noticed and got up. She asked me if I was okay and I gestured that I wasn't. That's when she started giving me firm back blows. A fish bone flew out.
Afterwards, I was even more shocked than I had been during the incident, as it all felt very dramatic. I kept thinking, if she hadn't noticed, would anyone else have? I genuinely thought I was going to die. It was horrible.
If anyone would stay calm in a crisis, it would be Lucy.’
Lucy: ‘Leslie and her husband had come to stay with me in Totnes, Devon, and we had gone out for a meal at a pub. While we were eating, Leslie suddenly started spluttering and choking.
It took me a couple of seconds to realise what was happening. She was unable to speak and was clearly struggling to breathe. I leaned her forward and gave her several back blows between her shoulder blades, and she coughed up a fish bone.
I had seen something previously about babies choking. I remembered reading a magazine article that explained how to lay a baby down and give them back blows.
In the moment, I wasn't panicking. It was only afterwards, when Leslie told me how bad it had been and how little air she had been getting, that the gravity of the situation really hit me. I did think afterwards that if the back blows hadn't worked, I wouldn't have known how to do abdominal thrusts. We were lucky that the firm back blows were enough to dislodge the bone.
For months afterwards, I kept thinking that I should get first aid training, but then it got forgotten about. I wish I had done it. I will be attending one of the free first aid demonstrations offered by St John as part of Save a Life September near where I live.’
