Video: Choking Child Aged One to Puberty

We produced this short video in assocation with St John Ambulance to clarify the information provided in our articles about choking in children. The video is free to watch - simply click the play button above.

Take a look at our articles First Aid: Choking and What to do: Choking Facts and Prevention
for more information on this topic.

Video Transcript

My name is Moya Travis and I am a first aid trainer with St John Ambulance. Today I am working with safekids and I am going to demonstrate to you how you would deal with a child that is choking. A child is from one to puberty.

On discovering that the child is having difficulty with something in his mouth, the first thing I am going to do with him is encourage him to cough.

After he has had a cough, I will check his mouth to see if anything has appeared and I would pick it out. If that doesn't work what I am going to do is stand to the side of the child, take a firm grip of him and then what I am going to do is give him five back blows. Using my hand like that I'm going to do the back blows between the shoulder blades and as I go in, I'm coming up at the same time, so you just bounce off.

Then I would check his mouth to see if anything has come into his mouth, if I did I would take it out.

If that hasn't worked, then what I will do is stand behind the child and I will place my hand on the breast bone and I am going to give him five chest thrusts.

I will check his mouth again and if that hasn't worked I will repeat the cycle of encouraging him to cough, five back slaps and five chest thrusts, and I will repeat that until the object has moved.

If after the first cycle the object hasn't been moved, I would ensure that someone went to the phone to dial 999 because we need an ambulance now. If not, I would take the child with me.

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