"Man, oh man, talk about a fortuitous purchase and guardian angels! Catherine gave us quite the scare this afternoon, choking on a slice of mandarin orange. I typically slice them into small pieces but had a lapse in judgment, giving her a couple directly from her brother’s plate. In what seemed like a millisecond, she’d inhaled a piece and lodged it in her airway. Luckily, we had the Dechoker on hand and resolved the problem just as fast as it arose. Both breathing a huge sigh of relief. While I am confident that I could have gotten the food dislodged myself, I am so, so glad that I didn't have to find out. This device took 2 seconds tops whereas I would have been a panicked mess. YA’LL when I say “straight out the box” I am not exaggerating. We had the Dechoker in our house less than 24 hours before it had to be used! Seriously… Catherine's brother was still using the shipping box as a robot arm mere minutes before the incident. Typically, I try to avoid topics like this. I think Momming is challenging enough without going down the rabbit hole of “what if’s” and “worst-case scenarios”. While I do not like to live in the hypothetical, I also think it is important not to be naïve. And admittedly in this regard, I was. Sure, I knew that choking hazards are commonplace with younger children, but I thought that tried-and-true Heimlich Maneuver and back pats did the trick in most every case. After our scare this afternoon, I went and looked up statistics and was alarmed and taken aback by the number of choking fatalities that occur each year. Thank you for creating such a wonderful product. Forever grateful and life-long customer."