A FIVE-YEAR-OLD child in Sipalay City choked to death on the wafer crisps he was eating, Monday night, November 18.

Authorities identified the fatality as Reynaldo Gajo Jr., a resident of Barangay Gil Montilla, Sipalay City.

In a radio interview with Aksyon Radyo-Bacolod, Dr. Josabele Macoti said Gajo was rushed to the city’s infirmary by his mother after he stopped breathing.

When medical staff interviewed the victim’s mother, they were told that she was working inside the house when she heard her son’s call for help as he was choking on the wafer crisps he was eating.

Medical staff attempted to revive Gajo through cardiopulmonary resuscitation, but he eventually passed away 45 minutes after the incident.

The doctor added the child could have been saved if the parents knew the Heimlich maneuver. The Heimlich maneuver is a first-aid procedure for dislodging an obstruction from a person’s windpipe in which a sudden strong pressure is applied on the abdomen, between the navel and the rib cage.