You watch the world exploding every single night, dancing in the sun a newborn in the light

Ever have something happen where you were certain you were going to die? I don't mean thinking afterwards that "whew, that could have been bad" but actually where the thought "this is it...I am not going to live beyond a few more seconds"?

Unfortunately I've had a few, most related to my sleep apnea. The worst however was this past summer. I almost choked to death while driving to work one morning last July.

It was like any other morning to that point, the only difference being I didn't have a chance to eat breakfast at home because I had gotten up a bit late. So I made my stop at the mini-mart that I did every morning to get my diet pepsi for the day, then I decided to pop into the Wendy's drive-thru next door for breakfast.

Wendy's breakfast, at least imo, blows. However there was nothing else in the vicinity or directly on the way to work and I was really hungry, so I just went ahead and got a couple of their cheapo breakfast burritos. And like so many times before, without giving a second thought to it I just began to eat while I was driving to work.

Lots of people eat while driving. I'm willing to bet that if you're reading this you do too. I used to as well. Used to. Because not 90 seconds back on the road I either hit a bump or just inhaled strangely and suddenly I found part of the burrito I was chewing lodged in my throat.

My first thought was something along the lines of "meh, better be more careful". My immediate next thought as I tried to clear my throat was "oh shit, thats not going to come out". I felt a slight flash of panic as I gave a major effort to dislodging the piece of burrito and nothing happened. I could actually visualize it in my throat, sitting comfortably...almost perfectly...over my airway and stuck good.

I realized at this point that I really had a problem. I was very much aware of the fact that I was no longer getting any oxygen at all and I could feel my face turning flush. I don't know why, but at this point instead of blindly panicking I began to calm down and think. As I mentioned before I had had more than my share of not breathing moments because of my apnea. I continued to try to dislodge it but nothing was happening so I began to evaluate my surroundings.

I knew calling for help on the cell was out. I needed someone to attempt a heimlich or to at least call the paramedics because I knew I was going to black out soon. My vision was already blurring. I also realized that I was still driving and that I was at that point a hazard to everyone around me. Except there was no one around me driving, which was another problem. In fact there was nothing around me in the near vicinity at all in a residence manner either, at least nothing in a vicinity that was going to help me. At this point I was without oxygen for about 60 seconds.

Then I began to think of my son, and that I was never going to see him again. I also thought of the fact that he was going to have to live with the knowledge that his dad died choking on a breakfast burrito heh. After I thought of my son I looked in my rear mirror and saw some cars driving behind me roughly a quarter mile back. That was going to be my one and only chance to somehow survive this, so I had to think of something.

The only thing that I could come up with was to block the road with my car to force those cars behind me to stop and to draw attention to the fact I needed help. My vision was getting really blurred. I stopped my car on an angle taking up both lanes and began to get out of the car to gesture for help. I then saw the driver of first vehicle, a pickup truck, was not paying any attention to the road at all and was still bearing down at me at over 40mph. Heh, I was going to get t-boned before I choked. Maybe that would dislodge the burrito. Ok, bad joke. So as I was getting out of the car I had to just as quickly get back in and throw the car in reverse to prevent an accident. He saw me about 30 feet away and began to swerve but didn't bother to slow down or discern that perhaps there was a problem which would explain this idiot (me) stopping his car blocking both lanes and getting out of his vehicle. He probably even flipped me off too but I couldn't tell at this point.

So now I'm in bad shape. I put the car in park (now only blocking the right lane) and get out and begin to wave my arms to attract the attention (hopefully) of the other 2 cars that I knew were behind the pickup. As I got out of the car...I don't know if it was because of diaphram contracting then expanding or what...I had an enormous amount of pressure release from my abdomen that resulted in a belch of Homer Simpson-esque proportions. This release of pressure in turn resulted in that small piece of burrito being forced out of my throat and into the street. Amazing. I leaned forward against my car, gasping for breath and just blindly waving my arm motioning the stopped drivers (who at this point were staring at me like I had just emerged from a UFO) to go around me. But I could breathe again, and I wasn't going to die. Not that morning, at least.

So from that point forward I stopped eating while driving. In fact aside from at home, I make sure not to eat without people in the vicinity. I also told my son about this and asked him to stop eating in the car as well, which he has. I would recommend to you all that you do the same.

Oh yeah, and I threw out the rest of that damn burrito.