By ROBERT JUMPER
Tutiyi (Snowbird) and Clyde, N.C.
According to Statista.com, “In 2023, there were around 5,529 choking deaths in the United States. Death is more common among the elderly, with food most often responsible for such incidents. The odds of one dying from choking on food are around 1 in 2,461. These odds are greater than the odds of dying from an accidental gun discharge or as a passenger on a plane.”
The death rate from choking has been tracked and compiled by Statista since 1945, when the choking death rate was 897.
As I reach the golden age of 65 within a couple of weeks of this writing, anything that might shorten my days tends to catch my eye. I am an information junkie. Personally, and professionally, I spend a bunch of time on the internet. I am also part of a volunteer church safety team, and first aid is part of the training we are encouraged to take. Choking intervention is one of the modules that the Red Cross teaches. Having briefly researched the subject on the internet, I was bombarded with advertisements and promotions for choking mitigation devices.
Cookies are unavoidable – not just the kind you eat, but the kind that is a byproduct of using the Internet. Internet or web cookies are small text files stored on your computer or device by websites you visit. Cookies enable websites to remember information about you, making getting around the World Wide Web easier. It also makes it easier for companies to customize their internet advertising to your specific activity on the internet. So, as I searched for information on how to save my life and the lives of others from choking, companies were noting those searches and began to feed me information accordingly, enough information and offers to choke a horse (sorry, I couldn’t resist).
But I am not here to talk about, necessarily, that kind of cookie. I wanted to share a personal testimony and use the readership for my personal therapy.
We all live in a world that encourages us to do things efficiently and quickly. I was raised to minimize my downtime and maximize every moment. But moving quickly and multitasking to an extreme may come with a cost. Especially when it comes to eating when we age, there are a few things we may do to let us live another day, to stop and smell those roses.
- Slow down. We all would do better to get out of the habit of stuffing our faces and running to the next task. We do it without even thinking.
- Chew your food. People typically choke on chunks of food that they neglected to chew thoroughly.
- Here’s one your granny probably told you a long time ago. Don’t talk with your mouth full. We often let the desire to tell a tale or respond to a question put us at risk of choking. The simple physics of it is that we tend to breathe, at least to some extent, through our mouths when we talk. If our mouth is full of food as we are sucking wind in as we talk, we increase the chances that we will suck food into our windpipe. A sudden, unexpected, action might startle us enough to suck in the air and draw food into our windpipes. The same would be true for laughing with food in your mouth.
When we are very young, our guardians feed us liquids and soft foods because we aren’t developed enough physically and psychologically to avoid choking on solid food (and to be indelicate, we are likely gumming our food as babies, so proper mastication is problematic). The same eventually becomes true again as we age.
In 2023, approximately 28 percent of the community-dwelling older adults in the United States, age 65 or older, lived alone. That is roughly 16.2 million people (5.7 million men and 10.5 million women). Add to the list of infirmities that our memories tend to erode as we age. All that good news to say we are more prone to certain injuries than our younger selves.
Therefore, we need to be more vigilant and practice, going back to reminding ourselves of the lessons of our infancy. Don’t get me wrong, I believe we folks who are going through the silver years of our lives are strong and intelligent. But I also know that we cannot stop the progression of aging that God has put forth in our nature. Some of us will hold it off longer than others with exercise and good genes, but eventually, unless death takes us suddenly, we will experience the decline in mobility and ability in aging.
The good news is that there are indeed ways to mitigate some of the new challenges. In addition to watching how you eat, some techniques and devices will help us if we do get into an emergency, and we are alone. And if you end up being a caregiver, a spouse, a child, or just someone who cares, you should get training, particularly cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and first aid training.
North Carolina, as a point of law (N.C.G.S. 20-166.d and N.C.G.S 90-21.14) provides that “any person who does give emergency or first aid assistance at the scene of a motor vehicle crash cannot be liable for personal injury or other civil damages if their acts or failure to act causes further injury to the person, unless the behavior was grossly negligent (a high standard or intentional. Further, liability is limited for volunteer health care and medical workers who receive no compensation for their services if immediate health treatment was necessary to mitigate serious further injury or save the life of the person. Volunteer medical workers will not be liable for personal injury or other civil damages unless their behavior was grossly negligent or intentional wrongdoing.”
And keep in mind that in 2013, North Carolina passed a Good Samaritan statute that protects individuals from criminal liability. The law was designed to encourage individuals to call 911 in the event of a drug or alcohol overdose. It provides a person who witnesses an overdose with limited criminal immunity if they are under the legal drinking age or have small amounts of drugs and call 911. It also protects an underage victim of an alcohol overdose from prosecution for underage drinking.” (A&S Personal Injury Lawyers) These protections in law would likely extend to any efforts to save a life or treat an injury.
Since I am talking with my peers, I guess I should mention something else that tends to get weaker with age. We just aren’t able to buck dance like we used to. Our footwork suffers more with each year that we age.
From the Center for Disease Control (CDC), “Each year, millions of older people-those 65 and older-fall. In fact, more than one out of four older people falls each year, but less than half tell their doctor. Falling doubles your chances of falling again. One out of 10 falls results in an injury that causes the older adult to restrict their activities for more than a day or to seek attention from the healthcare system. Each year, there are about 3 million emergency department visits due to older people falls. Each year, there are about 1 million fall-related hospitalizations among older adults. In 2019, 83 percent of hip fracture deaths and 88 percent of emergency department visits and hospitalizations for hip fractures were caused by falls. Each year nearly 319,000 older people are hospitalized for hip fractures. Falls are the most common cause of traumatic brain injury.”
As we get older, our muscle mass naturally declines, our Vitamin D production slows, we take more medications, our vision deteriorates, we experience more foot pain, we lose coordination and have challenges navigating normal household clutter. Our bones break more easily, and our skin and muscle bruises stay longer. Yes, we are resilient, but in a different way. Falls at our age, are likely to maim and kill us. Again, we must do what it takes to mitigate the effects of aging on our balance. Routine check-ups, physical therapy/exercise, eating right, and getting the proper supplements will help. And don’t be too proud to use a walking stick, a walker, or even a Jazzy if needed.
As I age, I am reminded by my body that even though my mind thinks like a teenager, it is trapped in an aging body. And the consequences of a mis-swallow or misstep are more significant to my older body than in those younger days when my recovery time from injury was far less than it is today. Telling myself that it happens to everyone is a small consolation, especially when you may be watching your dear loved ones aging with you.
Famously, Clint Eastwood in the Dirty Harry movie series said, “A man has got to know his limitations.”
Although he was talking in a different context, the quote is no less true for us as we age. Knowing our limitations now and what they will be later, and planning for them, will make life in our golden years much more enjoyable. Resist the urge and desire to think that because your mind is still nimble that your body is too. And remember to chew that cookie thoroughly and swallow it before you talk or laugh. You might live longer because of it. Oh, and by the way, as of this writing, Clint is 94 years old.
