CORONA DEL MAR TODAY

CdM Daughter Saves Choking Dad’s Life

A Corona del Mar woman saved her father’s life earlier this week when he choked while eating a steak dinner.

“She saved my life, there’s no doubt about it,” said William Mulvehill, 83, who lives in the Jasmine Creek neighborhood.

Kate Mulvehill said she served her father a steak but was in another room when she heard a gasping breath.

“I had never heard that sound from him,” she said today. “I waited, then I heard the gasping sound again. I went to check on him, and he was already turning that pasty white. I knew exactly what it was.”

Mulvehill said she went into automatic mode, using training she received as a member of the Newport Beach Fire Department’s Community Emergency Response Team, or CERT.

“I knew I had a very small window of time,” she said. “I did exactly what they trained us to do. I didn’t get that panicky feeling. It was just boom, boom, boom.”

She performed the Heimlich maneuver — but it didn’t work. She tried the phone to call 911, but the phones weren’t working, so she ran to a neighbor’s house and asked them to call. Their phone also didn’t work, so she ran to another house. Then she returned to her father and continued to work on her father.

Finally, she said, the maneuver worked, and the meat came out — about 30 seconds before paramedics arrived.

“The patient was extremely cyanotic and dyspneic and care was taken over by our EMS crews,” said Jennifer Schulz, a fire department spokeswoman. “The patient improved dramatically over the next few minutes and was transported to Hoag Hospital as a precautionary measure following this traumatic event.”

Captain Mike Liberto said that Kate Mulvehill, and the neighbors who helped her, clearly saved his life.

“Had it not been for the quick actions of each citizen involved, the outcome of this situation may have ended much differently,” he said.

John Thomas helped administer aid, Paula Thomas called 911 and Meredith Worrell directed paramedics to the patient, Schulz said.

Kate Mulvehill said her father saved his own life because he was so cooperative. “He didn’t resist, he followed my directions.”

William Mulvehill said he was a bit bruised and sore — but extremely grateful his daughter knew what to do.

Kate Mulvehill said this was the second time in her one year of CERT training that she’d used the training to help an ailing parent. Five months ago, she used her CERT experience to help her terminally ill mother when a power outage caused her oxygen to stop functioning.

Mulvehill urged other citizens to attend CERT classes and work with their neighbors to learn how to help in an emergency or natural disaster.

“In both cases with my parents, we would have lost them if it were not for the CERT,” she said. “This program saves lives.”