T’was a few weeks before Christmas, when 57 year old John Adams (a federal employee/local Santa Clause) bit into some white bread at a Las Vegas restaurant. Suddenly he started coughing and motioning that he couldn’t breathe. Two of his relatives and a couple waiters performed the Heimlich maneuver on him, but to no avail. In fact, a series of under-the-diaphragm thrusts made him choke even more.
He fell to the floor unconscious, and the restaurant staff called the paramedics. Coincidently and fortunately, Dr.Michael Colletti, former president of the Clark County Medical Society, was in the restaurant when all this was happening. When the general manger brought Colletti to the unconscious Santa, Colletti knew that he didn’t have much time left.
“It appeared that he would die right in front of us,” he said. Colletti immediately acquired a steak knife, felt down Adams neck, and slit his throat at just the right place. He then put a straw inside of the slit and began to breathe into it. Soon enough, Adams regained consciousness, and in 15 minutes, he whisked away by the paramedics.
The best part of this entire story is that Colletti had never performed any kind of surgery; he only remembered this procedure from a lesson in Medical School-which he attended more than 30 years ago! Well, it looks like someone definitely made the “nice” list!