Rob Kirkness was just finishing up his lunch service at Kingfishers Waterfront Bar and Grill in Maple Ridge on Wednesday, July 23, when someone ran in the kitchen and called for a first aid attendant on the patio.
Kirkness, who has only been working at Kingfishers for the past three months, is a Level 3 certified first aid attendant, went out.
"At first I kind of expected to go out there and see what sized Band-Aid somebody needed and go back in the kitchen and get that," he said.
But when he arrived on the patio, at about 1:30 p.m., he discovered an elderly woman, choking.
The small group of guests were at the restaurant as part of an outing from local seniors residence.
Kirkness said even when he arrived, the woman was already showing signs of a lack of oxygen 鈥� there was a tinge of blue to the lips, she was unable to speak or cough.
He told somebody to call 9-1-1, and was told they were already on their way, and immediately he performed the Heimlich maneuver.
Unfortunately, after about 15 to 20 seconds of performing the life-saving first aid procedure, them woman became unresponsive in his arms.
Kirkness, with help from a bystander, brought the woman to the ground.
"We were now in a full trauma situation at that point," said the cook, noting woman had now began convulsing, foaming at the mouth, and she was completely blue and purple.
He did a quick head adjustment and a finger sweep of the throat, which was difficult, he said, because the woman was clenching her jaw.
Kirkness thought he felt a little something when he did the finger sweep, but went into CPR, doing a full round of 30 compressions and went back to the head adjustment, and finger sweep.
"As soon as I saw her, there was this voice in the back of my head that said, if I don't get this blockage out, she's not going to live," he said.
So, he went for it.
"I managed to get my fingers quite deep down into the throat and I felt something and I managed to do almost like a scissor-pinch with my fingers," he said, grabbing the blockage and pulling it out.
"It was a good chunk of steak," he said, that was fully blocking her throat.
As soon as the steak came out, the woman gasped and, Kirkness said, he was able to stabilize her and get her comfortable.
He took a second to wash his hands and gloved up and got her into a recovery position.
Kirkness made sure she was talking and conscious and recovering her breathing. He also made sure she had a pulse, and that she wasn't about to go into cardiac arrest, and making sure her breathing was constant and stable.
About three minutes later an ambulance arrived and at that point he passed off the patient to the paramedics.
Kirkness said after the incident, his memory is a little hazy.
"When I got back to the kitchen I took five or ten minutes to just sit outside," he said, describing how shaky his body was from the adrenaline of the moment.
After, though, he finished his day with the team.
Kirkness has never had to use his first-aid skills for a major traumatic event before.
Usually he is called for cuts, scrapes, and burns.
He received his first first aid certificate when he was about 18 years old. This covered basic first aid like little bit of CPR, bandaging, and burns.
Kirkness said the reason he kept training in first aid was for his previous job where he worked remotely at a private fishing lodge. As part of that company's initiative, they wanted multiple people certified in first aid because they were an hours helicopter ride away from any hospital.
The 42-year-old just received his Level 3 certificate a year ago, which covers everything from patching a person for a helicopter lift, trauma, critical intervention, amputations, cardiac arrest, and more.
But what happened at the restaurant has made him respect paramedics even more for what they do on a day-to-day basis.
"Those guys are unreal," he said of local paramedics, noting their response time in this instance was way faster than he anticipated.
The last he heard from the paramedics as they were leaving the restaurant was that the prognosis was good for the woman.
Kirkness credits his teacher at Maple Ridge Trauma Tech, where he received his Level 3 certification, for his presence of mind during the incident.
He said his training immediately kicked in, kept him calm, and made him systematically think about what he had to do.
"At least I know, if it happens again, I'm not going to freeze," Kirkness said.
Greg Herman, Kingfishers general manager, was ecstatic with the outcome of a situation that could easily have had a tragic conclusion.
"I couldn't be happier that Rob was able to help someone out in a situation like that, that's, you know, a very temperamental situation, and we hope the best for the person who suffered the unfortunate choking incident, but happy that it didn't become a tragic outcome.
