Tag Archives: choking

Nine people choke to death eating rice cakes in Japan

Posted on by
Reply

Japan’s habitual New Year killer has struck again, after nine people were reported to have died in recent days from choking on rice cakes.

mochiMochi – glutinous cakes of pounded rice – are traditionally eaten in vast quantities over the holidays, usually in soup, or toasted and served with sweet soy sauce and wrapped in dried seaweed.

Several people die eating the starchy delicacy every January, but this year the number is particularly high.

Local media reported that nine people had died over the holidays, while 13 others were in a serious condition in hospital. 

Tragic: New Zealand sportsman chokes to death at dinner

Posted on by
1

The captain of the New Zealand men’s netball team has died after choking on a piece of food while eating dinner with his wife.

Mike Siave, 35, was at the dinner table in his Canterbury home with his wife of 10 years, Amanda, on Friday when he collapsed to the ground unable to breathe.

He died at the scene from what the coroner later ruled was asphyxiation caused by a food blockage.

Ms Siave told the New Zealand Herald she’d lost "the love of my life" and the "wonderful" father of their two sons, Jackson, seven, and Cooper, five.

Mr Siave was also a senior salesman at Telecom and a long-term member of the Canterbury men’s netball team, which has pledged to dedicate its 2012 season to him.

Netball is similar to basketball and was first developed in England in the 1890s.

Jetstar passengers offered vouchers after man ‘chokes to death on in-flight meal’

Posted on by
Reply

 Choking on food is a well-recognized, if underdocumented, hazard.

And although daughter Courtlynn had her Los Angeles wait time extended from a scheduled five hours to 12 hours, she didn’t have to endure a dead body.

Jetstar passengers were offered a $100 travel voucher after a man died on a flight from Singapore to Auckland, N.Z. last week.

Hamilton city councillor Ewan Wilson, a former pilot and Kiwi Air founder, said he watched in horror as Robert Rippingale’s body was carried away and put in a crew restarea for the remainder of the long-haul flight.

What caused his death is now the subject of a coronial inquest, but reports have said Rippingale choked to death on a meal.

His girlfriend, Vanessa Preechakul, 27, told the New Zealand Herald how she sat next to his body for the duration of the flight.

A doctor on board pronounced Mr Rippingale dead 90 minutes after take-off.
"One minute we were sitting next to each other kissing, holding hands and the next minute he was choking," Ms Preechakul said at his funeral, yesterday.