Shankar Vedantam

I had to watch all these safety videos.

And the first thing I learned was that if you're choking, most people can save you as long as you don't leave the room.

But it's so embarrassing to choke that most people who die do so because

They just want to be alone and not have other people see them.

So I went to the bartender and I couldn't speak, but I kind of like, you know, made the universal choking signature.

And then I twisted into him with my back, but he didn't really know what was going on and didn't help me that much.

So I grabbed Dominic's hand and pulled him into the men's room.

And he didn't know what was going on either at that point.

But I communicated to him that I need him to do the Heimlich on me or I would die.

And he looked like white, like he had seen a ghost.

But eventually he got in the position.

I kind of like started moving his hands towards my diaphragm and he gave me the Heimlich.

It came out.

And I remember at the end of this, you know, there was professors coming in to use the washroom and out and they're looking at us like, what are you guys doing in here?

But it bonded us together.

This weird near-death experience, almost me almost dying at the wine and cheese and him having to save my life created a bridge.

And from that point on, we became close friends and then we became collaborators.

And now we're still working together.

One of the most interesting studies I've ever read was written by a woman in the 70s who was part of a hijacking by a terrorist group.

She survived the ordeal and wrote this paper about what it was like psychologically among the passengers as they were held hostage for several days in this hijacked plane in the middle of the desert.