Do You Know How To Help Someone Choking In Your Restaurant?
Patricia Farnham
Do you know how to help someone who is choking in your restaurant? It is amazing how many people own and operate a very successful business that serves food yet they aren't trained in this area. It only takes a second for this type of incident to take place in such a business. Don't wait until you have had to helplessly stand by before decide to learn these types of procedures.
If you know what to do when someone is choking you can easily assist them. This is something you need to be able to do very rapidly. The faster you can remove the object the less risk there is of the person not being able to breathe. Too many times though when something like this happens the person is sitting there for several minutes before someone comes to their aid.
By law an owner of a restaurant doesn't have to learn how to do such procedures. They aren't legally held responsible should someone choke on food in their business either. Yet that doesn't mean you don't have an ethical responsibility to help your customers when they really need it. How you choose to handle such an issue is completely up to you. It is a good idea for you to have some other staff members trained as well so that someone how can help is available.
Contact your local health department, Red Cross, and community center to find out who offers classes to teach you all that you will need to know in order to help someone who is choking. Find out the length of the course, when it is offered, and the cost. This way you can contact the staff members you want to attend and get schedules adjusted to make sure the restaurant won't suffer while those people are away.
Approach the staff that you would like to attend this type of training as well. Your long term employees as well as managers should be a part of it. Let them know that you will be covering the cost of paying for their materials. You also need to pay them wages for the time they spend in the class. This will generally be a day or two depending on the program. You can write all of it off as a business expect for your taxes as well.
You may not realize that you can use one technique when an adult or older child is choking and then another for a very small child. It is important to know them both because you just never know who it may be that is choking. Many assume that parents of small children understand what to do when they choke. This is common misconception and many of them will be frozen with fear if such an event does occur.
Take your time to really look for a well taught class on the subject. Find out the credentials of the trainers and the techniques they will cover. CPR should also be part of the curriculum as some people won't be able to automatically start breathing again after the air has been cut off while choking. The very best training courses have mannequins that are offered for people to practice on. This hands on training really does make a difference. It can allow you to go from just trying to memorize the process to really understanding how it all comes together.
Running a restaurant is certainly going to open up many different types of events to take care of. Being prepared to properly assist a person of any age who may be choking is something you need to keep in mind. Hopefully you and your staff will never need to put those skills into motion. It is just one more of the many ways though that you can try to keep the best interests of your customers in mind.
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