By JAN LARSON McLAUGHLIN
BG Independent News
Two weeks ago, while dining in downtown Bowling Green, a man slumped over in his seat, his head dropping into his plate.
At a neighboring table, Scott Stewart was engrossed in the Jeopardy game on TV as he finished up his dinner at Trotters.
“I was in a zone watching Jeopardy,” he said.
Then he saw the woman at the next table start hitting her husband on his back.
“I thought they were having a fight,” Stewart said.
But Stewart’s wife, Ginny, realized the man was choking and his wife was trying to dislodge the blockage.
“He went straight down into his plate,” Scott Stewart said.
At another table, Erik and Chelsey Marschall were taking a rare “date night.”
“I’ll be real honest – I was tired and I didn’t want to go out,” said Erik Marschall, an American history teacher at Bowling Green High School.
But Chelsey Marschall pointed out that her mom was babysitting for their daughter – and with their second child due soon, they shouldn’t miss the opportunity for a night out.
“We just started eating and we heard the commotion,” Erik Marschall said.
The commotion was Stewart trying to perform the Heimlich on the unconscious man, who was short but very muscular and heavy to lift up.
Marschall rose to help, and remembers Stewart saying, “We’ve got to get him up.”
Marschall began doing the Heimlich Maneuver, but at 6 foot, 7 seven inches, he was pushing too high on the choking man’s chest. So Stewart coached him to lower his trusts to the abdomen.
Within seconds, the food blockage shot out.
“It happened so fast,” Marschall said.
“You could see the blockage expel from his mouth,” Stewart said. “I saw that piece come out and I knew it was going to be OK.”
When that happened, the man’s head snapped back and hit Marschall in the face – breaking his nose.
“He got me pretty good,” Marschall said with a smile.
Neither Stewart nor Marschall got the name of the man they saved. They only know he was visiting Bowling Green, and was celebrating his 63rd birthday at Trotters with his wife and daughter.
“He was extremely humbled and thankful,” Marschall said.
And Marschall tried to comfort the man – explaining that he too has eaten the steak too fast at Trotters because it is so good.
“It was a big ole chunk on the floor,” Marschall said.
Neither Stewart nor Marschall had performed the Heimlich before – though both have been through training – Stewart as an optometrist, and Marschall as a high school coach.
Marschall, however, did have the Heimlich performed on him by his sister when he was in college. He came home famished, and was eating too fast when food got lodged in his throat.
“It came right out,” he recalled.
The Stewart family had to use a similar technique on their granddaughter when she choked on a cheesestick.
“The next thing we knew, she was blue,” Ginny Stewart said.
Their son turned her over and hit her back, dislodging the food.
The incident two weeks ago left both men unsettled and full of adrenaline. Their wives were proud that both men helped with no hesitation.
“He stepped right up and took action,” Chelsey Marschall said.
“If you guys hadn’t been there, I don’t know what would have happened,” Ginny Stewart said.
Neither man feels like a hero – just relieved the outcome was good.
“If you do what you can do, you’re doing more than the people who just sit there,” Scott Stewart said.
