Heimlich Move Saves Man Who Made It Known

TV weatherman Frank Field, who helped introduce the Heimlich maneuver in the 1970s, was saved from choking in a restaurant by sportscaster Warner Wolf, who said he had learned the technique from Field years ago.

But it took two tries, and Field said all he could think after the first attempt was, “My God, it doesn’t work.”

“I thought, ‘Here for 14 years I’ve been running around trying to save somebody in a restaurant, and now I’m the victim,’ ” Field, 62, said today, the day after the incident. “It was just irony that it should happen to me.”

Field came to know Dr. Henry Heimlich in 1968 when Field did a half-hour television program for WNBC-TV on rebuilding the esophagus. In 1971, Heimlich, who used to practice in New York, visited Field and said he had developed a technique to help prevent people from choking.

That started Field on a crusade and he continued his demonstrations at least once a month for five or six years, although, he said, “I had a fight almost every month with my editor, (who said) ‘How many times do you want to live off that thing?’ ”