ORLANDO, Fla.— It was a normal shift for patient care technician Mireya Torrealba at AdventHealth East Orlando — until a persistent cough changed everything.
As Torrealba made her rounds on the unit that day last August, she overheard a patient coughing repeatedly.
At first, she wasn’t alarmed — the patient had family in the room, and nothing seemed out of the ordinary. But the coughing didn’t stop.
“I noticed it was very frequent,” Torrealba said. “So, I went to check what was happening. When I got there, the patient was already turning purple.”
Torrealba quickly asked if the patient could breathe. The woman signaled that she could not.
Without hesitation, Torrealba began performing the Heimlich maneuver — a lifesaving technique used when someone is choking.
Within moments, the patient expelled the food that had blocked her airway and began breathing again.
“She started to feel better right away,” Torrealba said. “I called the charge nurse, and she came to check on her. Thankfully, by then, everything was OK.”
Although not commonly performed by patient care technicians, the Heimlich maneuver is a critical emergency response skill taught in basic clinical training — and one Torrealba acted on instinctively.
“When you’re in health care and you see something like that, your first reaction is to save the person’s life,” she said. “I had the knowledge and training, so I didn’t even think twice.”
The incident is a powerful reminder of the importance of learning basic emergency techniques.
You don’t have to be a health care professional to perform the Heimlich maneuver — anyone can learn it, and it can save a life.
National Heimlich Maneuver Day, observed every year on June 1, highlights the value of this simple but effective method, first introduced in 1974 by Dr. Henry Heimlich.
Thanks to Torrealba’s quick thinking and calm under pressure, one AdventHealth patient is alive and well — and the hospital community is reminded how critical it is to be prepared.
“It’s moments like these that show how every team member — no matter their title — plays a role in protecting and caring for our patients,” said Yolanda Lord-Cole, director of nursing at AdventHealth East Orlando.
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