On Friday March 19, Professor Joseph Salerno saved my life.
At the end of the second day of the Austrian Scholars Conference, I was standing in the courtyard of the Mises Institute talking while eating a salad (as one is not supposed to do) -- when a chunk of carrot and lettuce suddenly lodged in my windpipe.
My first thought was: Sure enough, just as I have read, one is sort of paralyzed when this happens, able neither to talk nor move.
In four to six minutes, the brain begins to die from oxygen deprivation. Indeed, more than 3,000 Americans die exactly this way every year.
Thank God my old friend Joe Salerno was standing there.
Looking at me intently, he said: "Are you choking?" He immediately grabbed me from behind and performed the Heimlich Maneuver, invented by Henry J. Heimlich, MD. Joe had to do it four times, indicating just how wedged the food was. With the final yank, which lifted me off my feet, the material popped out like a cork from a bottle, in the words of my nephew Clay when I told him about it.
Like Murray Rothbard, I have always been grateful to Joe for his work as a scholar and teacher, for his adherence to principle, for his brilliance and originality in the service of the Austrian School. Now I owe him just slightly more.
