Super 15 rugby star 'probably saved my life'

Wendy Knight and Jamie Mackintosh (inset). Photos / Supplied, Otago Daily Times

Wendy Knight may have had a rib cracked courtesy of Jamie Mackintosh - but she credits the Highlanders skipper with saving her life.

"I thought I was going to die ... I really did," the 44-year-old said yesterday, recalling an incident this month when she choked on a piece of meat.

With a wheatbag pressed against her cracked rib, the non-rugby fan is clearly still in pain when she recalls her conversion to becoming the 128kg prop's biggest fan.

A fortnight ago, while dining with family at the Dunedin Lone Star restaurant, she was just two bites into her steak when an oversized piece she had cut off became stuck in her throat.

"It was totally my fault. It got caught in the back of throat and I couldn't get it to go down or bring it back up again."

Mrs Knight said she left her table in a panic, and made a loud noise as she began to feel light-headed.

Unable to breathe, she felt someone behind her perform the Heimlich manoeuvre, causing the "large piece of meat" to come out. She then vomited.

"I didn't know know who it was. I didn't know where they came from ... I didn't even get a chance to say thanks."

While she may not have known who Mackintosh was before the incident, she now was "his number one fan".

"He probably saved my life."

She now hopes to meet him face to face.

"I would tell him thank you. I would probably cry."

While the experience has made her into "his biggest fan", the same could not be said for meat.

"I don't think I will ever eat steak again."

Speaking from the Invercargill Lone Star last night, Mackintosh downplayed the incident as something anyone else would do.

"I have choked before and I know what a horrible feeling it is."

At the time, he was having dinner with fellow Highlanders Tony Brown, Jimmy Cowan, Aaron Smith and Jarrad Hoeata, when he saw Mrs Knight near them.

"We asked if she was OK and seeing she couldn't talk, I got in behind her and it was like a great big grizzly bear mauling some kind of small animal."

Mackintosh said he had never had any medical training, but knew what to do in the event of someone choking.

"I obviously buggered it up if I cracked her rib," he said.

Under the Heimlich manoeuvre hands are clasped around the victim from the back and an abrupt pull backwards forces air in the lungs out the trachea.

- Otago Daily Times