kbronsito: berylman: His birth name was Dax, it's amazing he survived to 37. It's like a de-longevity gypsy curse given on day 1. And working for the charnel tunnel at ABC was probably a factor as well

The symbiote should carry his memories over to the next host. Except for the drunken blackouts. Those are gone forever.

khatores: cherryl taggart: Wine Sipping Elitist: That article created more questions than answers.

He choked to death on vomit outside of the restaurant? That's ... improbable although not impossible. I'm not sure but knowing how to perform CPR or the Heimlich is a common skill at a restaurant, and people tend to indicate when they are choking. A restaurant worker followed him outside and saw him collapse and didn't perform CPR? The police were called when relatives came to watch the children? Why? Why didn't the hotel call the people responsible for the room? Why did they leave very, very young children alone to get drunk?

This tragic story seems to contain a bunch of lies.

When someone starts to choke, it's almost instinctive to rise and try to get away from a group of onlookers.  It's why restaurant workers are trained to scan the room, like lifeguards scan pools.

True choking, like drowning, is very quiet.  And being inebriated would interfere with decision making.  So instead of standing up and attracting attention in a dining room, he was looking for a secluded area to go.

Fark is like a graduate studies program when it comes to alcohol-related things. The cops should start a tag in here for "DRUNK DEATHS" so we can offer better theories than they could ever come up with.

I think he was probably drunk before he went to the restaurant. Most of the drinks at NY steakhouses are generally pretty high, and obviously you don't get drunk quickly while eating steak. He does look like kind of a small guy though, so that would contribute to having a higher BAL than what we might expect.

I think he got pretty plastered on the way there, and THEN started eating steak but wasn't able to chew and swallow efficiently. Maybe he would have thrown up anyway, or maybe the steak got stuck on his uvula.

Then he ran out and tried to throw up, but since he was choking on the steak (it must have been pretty firmly lodged in there) it prevented the explosive vomit that normally occurs.  Rather than retching the contents of his stomach out into the wide world, it retched directly into the sides of his esophagus, causing him to choke to death.

Remember that feeling of how your stomach and diaphragm just start involuntarily contracting seemingly by themselves and blow everything about 3-4 feet out, hopefully into some helpless bushes?  Well imagine if that happened, but it didn't exit.  OUCH.  That would be a problem.

Some of it probably did exit, but at low velocity, which is worse because then it just sat in his mouth and nose, causing him to asphyxiate.

Normally, a person who is either standing or on their hands and knees, or even half inverted in a V shape should be able to vomit very efficiently. If you're lying on your back, you can still vomit if you just turn your head to one side although it's not quite as easy to get everything out.  Still, no choking.

This is the only way I can think of for someone to choke to death on their own vomit while awake and running around outside of a steakhouse in New York City.  Maybe someone else has another theory.

khatores: frankb00th: He tried to stop the vomit or it went up too quickly and he aspirated a nice blob of acid laden matter. His body's reaction was to cough it out. Unfortunately, since his last breath in aspirated vomit, he got little air in so he aspirated more vomit while what was already in his lungs went furter down. The cascading effect made a relatively trivial situation deadly.
(I work with old people in a care center)

Interesting. Is there any advice you can give as far as how to prevent this?  I've never had a problem, but after reading this...shiat, I don't want to choke to death in a similar situation.


DuneClimber: Now that's a good way to go. I hope I go out like that.

Yeah I think I'm going to try for a few more decades first, at least.