RIP Frank Field, a local New York TV weatherman who was a fixture of the television landscape when I was a kid in the 70s. He was 100 years old.
Field, who died Saturday, was an evangelist for the Heimlich maneuver, which saved his life in 1985.
He was dining at a Manhattan restaurant with the CBS sportscaster Warner Wolf when a piece of roast beef became lodged in Dr. Field’s throat. “There was no pain,” he later told The New York Times. “I tried to swallow and could not. I tried to cough. I was perfectly calm, until I realized I couldn’t breathe.” He was also unable to speak to Mr. Wolf to convey his distress.
“So I pointed to my throat and stood up, to give him access,” Dr. Field said. “He did it the first time, and it didn’t work. I thought: ‘My God! It doesn’t work. If I fell unconscious, I wouldn’t make the 11 o’clock news.'”
When Mr. Wolf tried again, he expelled the meat.
“Warner had never done it,” Dr. Field said, “but he had seen me demonstrate it on television.”
Frank Field, Who Brought Expertise to TV Weathercasting, Dies at 100 (NYTimes / Richard Goldstein)