My death was just 5 minutes away at most. NO, this was not a nightmare or a fictional story, this really happened. I know because it happened to me. The pill didn't slide down my throat the way it should, it detoured around the epiglottis and stuck firmly in my windpipe. No air in. No air out. I tried to cough. No air in, no air out.
I pounded my chest. I tried to thump myself on the back (if you've ever tried to congratulate yourself with a pat on the back you already know this is possible but it's tough to put any force behind it). I ran up the short flight of stairs to my wife's office, I was EXTREMELY glad I was not home alone at the time. I was waving my arms in what, apparently, was a poor attempt to communicate that I wanted her to pound on my back to dislodge the pill from my throat. Eventually I did get this idea across to her, but it didn't help. She could see the panicked look on my face, but since I had not said anything (of course, that was impossible) she asked, “What's the matter?” I tried, by gestures, to indicate that I was choking, and as I did that, I remembered the Heimlich maneuver.
If you've ever played charades you know how difficult it can be just to get the word “dog” out of someone with just gestures and without being able to make a sound. I was already about 90 seconds into this choking session and panic was really growing now. I don't remember what I did to try to get across the idea of Maggie doing a Heimlich to force air out of my lungs in hope of dislodging the obstruction, but clearly she was not getting the idea.
Now they say that at a time like this your life flashes before your eyes. Maybe that is true for some people but not for me. I say I was panicked, and I was, I was afraid to die. But it was not exactly what I expected. I said to myself, “I am not READY to die, there's too much I still want to do in this life.” On the other hand, I could see no alternative. I slumped to my knees, not to pray, but in acceptance that whatever was going to happen now, was going to happen without my intervention. I sincerely hoped that my wife, Maggie, might be able to do something to revive me, either herself or by calling 911 for an ambulance. We only lived about 1 mile from two different, very good hospitals. There was a slim chance I might survive.
When my knees hit the carpet I continued to drop until my thighs hit my heels, and my abdomen folded forward as my spine curved to absorb the shock of the sudden stop. Compressing the abdomen forced my intestines and organs up against my diaphragm. I had, in effect, accidentally done the Heimlich on myself, for the air from my lungs came whooshing out, depositing the pill on the carpet in front of me.
It felt good to feel the air fill my lungs again.
The reason I am telling this story this week is that a similar incident happen this week. The pill that was stuck in my throat is a vivid (if slightly hazy) memory from 20 years or more ago. This week it was just a glass of water and my own clumsiness that almost did me in. Having choked on a little water going down the “wrong” way, I still had a mouth full of water, so when I gasped to try to recover from this, I aspirated more water, filling my windpipe, and again (as it had many years ago) completely blocking air from entering or leaving my lungs. I recognized my peril immediately, and this time, I thought, “Dieing now would be REALLY INCONVENIENT. There are too many things left undone, too much I still want to accomplish.” I have tried to introduce the world to some ideas and processes that I sincerely hope will greatly benefit humanity. Yet I have not managed to make my voice heard or my efforts felt to a degree that I could feel certain that these things will have a chance to take hold.
I did manage to spit out the rest of the water in my mouth, and it seemed like a very long time while I crossed the room to the kitchen and tried to think what other actions I could take.
Fortunately, once again gravity came to my rescue, because gravity caused the water in the trachea to drain into my bronchial tubes, allowing air to pass freely once more. Well, that is not strictly accurate, “freely” is an exaggeration, but after several minutes of wheezing (some of it close to the volume of a jet engine's output), the remainder of the liquid in the trachea was cleared, and presume eventually, gradually the cilia of the bronchial tubes worked their magic (thanks in large part, I suspect, due to my having stopped smoking in 2000) to expel any remaining foreign liquid.
Now I am not going to recount every potentially fatal mishap in my life, like the bicycle accident that painted a large portion of a suburban intersection with my blood, because if I am really close to my feline quota of 9 lives, I might never dare leave the house again. Of course staying home is no protection in my case since both my choking episodes were at home. But needless to say, I am extremely glad to be alive, and working with a renewed vigor to try to get some things done before my number finally does come up.
While I'm being “nostalgic” for 20 years ago, let me regress a little further to 30 years back when I lived in Canada. Lethbridge is a town I never spent much time in. It was in a direct line between my home in Calgary and the US border, so I passed through (and over) a number of times, but with a sweet tooth like mine, I can't help but have a certain fondness for the sugarbeet growing territory surrounding that little city.
News this week arrived that Lethbridge is likely to become home to a biodiesel facility making 50 million liters of the stuff annually. Reportedly that will have a by-product of 4000 tonnes of glycerine, which currently sells (according to the company spokesman) at about CDN$1000/tonne, so that's a side revenue of CDN$4,000,000 a year. The problem at the moment is that canola oil, the main ingredient for their brew, is priced at CDN$655/tonne so it is not considered economic to make the stuff (they should read about Brazil, later in this column). However, despite the gloomy, distinctly unprofitable picture of their future, it will create 30 jobs, and ensure a future market for farmers products so the government of the province of Alberta has given BFuel Canada Corp. a grant of CDN$3.8 million, while they await word on a similar federal grant from Ottawa of an additional CDN$8 million, towards their proposed CDN$45 million facility. The Lethbridge Herald reports on their web site that the Alberta grant money is to be used for deposits on “refinery and processing equipment.”
It's not a new energy source, just one that has not received a lot of publicity. Methane hydrate is a kind of ice that is found below the permafrost layer in Arctic regions and at great depths along the ocean floor (benthic) at depths of greater than 300 meters. As the name suggests, this ice is rich in methane, encapsulated in tiny envelopes of water. It is very cold, and it is estimated that the world supply of methane hydrate is about equal to the natural gas reserves in conventional gas and oil fields. One of the reasons it may not be getting a lot of attention is that the discovery by popular writers have suggested that melting methane hydrate which bubbles to the surface of the ocean could actually explain the disappearances in the Bermuda Triangle. The theory (demonstrated as factual using models) is that when large pockets of gas are suddenly released under any sea going vessel, that although the density of water allows them to float, the combination of a lot of gas mixed in with the water is far less dense, and massive ships of steel (or even of wood) sink like a stone, very fast. Such speculative tales and associating the substance with the “mythology” of the Bermuda Triangle has keep methane hydrate out of the news in most cases.
That does not mean, however, that it is being ignored. Japan is desperate to reduce its dependency on foreign energy sources. They spent more than US$25 billion last year on energy imports. Therefore the island country is eagerly exploring exploitation of the methane trapped in large deposits not far from its own coast. They are working in cooperation with Canada and the US studying arctic deposits on land. Caution is strongly advised. Some scientists believe that methane hydrate is one of the main culprits in at least one of the great MASS EXTINCTIONS of the dinosaur era.
According to a Bloomberg News article from last December, filed by reporter, Shigeru Sato, some scientists claim it was melting of methane hydrate that caused the greatest overheating in prehistory. “Some researchers blame the greenhouse gas for triggering a global firestorm that helped wipe out the dinosaurs,” Sato says in his article. He also quotes Ryo Matsumoto of the University of Tokyo as saying, “Methane hydrate was a key cause of the global warming that led to one of the largest extinctions in the earth's history.” Indeed, reportedly Japan discovered these deposits of methane hydrate because some students noticed methane bubbling to the surface of the ocean spontaneously. Considerable caution seems only prudent as scientists explore the practicality of extracting the methane as a potential energy source.
Gulf Ethanol plans to purchase a biodiesel factory from Systems Management Group. That, in itself, wouldn't cause me to notice the transaction. What got my attention is, they are not buying it to operate as a business, they are buying it to disassemble it and move it to Central America. Gulf's CEO TJ Cloud is quoted on website “Red Orbit” as saying, “[that is] where feed stocks are plentiful and fuels are needed.” But on Gulf Ethanol's own website they also mention negotiations for new alliances with Uruguay's government and industrial community as well as strong ties with Brazil.
The fact that New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson is backing Senator Barack Obama's bid for the Democratic Party nomination for President may turn out to be good news for the biodiesel industry. Governor Richardson's Secretary of Agriculture, Miley Gonzalez, and his Rural Economic Advisor, Lenny Martinez were key movers in an “Biodiesel Policy Summit” held in that state recently. Naturally enough, the state's Department of Economic Development was another sponsor, as were Green Earth Fuels, Blue Sun Biodiesel, Sandia Labs, and the New Mexico Biodiesel Policy Association. Biodiesel Magazine online has all the details.
A Reuters news story from Friday also has some good news for biofuels industry. The government of Brazil just bought (at auction) 87 million gallons of biodiesel to help meet the mandated 2% biodiesel mix for all diesel fuel sold in the country. That is scheduled to increase to a mandatory B3 blend in July of this year. That is not, itself, the good news, but rather that they increased the offering price by 30% from previous auctions. Government officials claim that deliveries at the old prices presented no significant hardship to suppliers despite rises in prices for soy. It is their contention that most manufacturers probably had old stock on hand, purchased at lower prices, and that the new prices are sufficient to make a profit even with the new market price for soy in Brazil. They are now paying US$1.59 per liter. That converts to 1 gal. US = 3.7854 liters, so they are paying US$6.02/gal. I expect that US biodiesel makers would be only too happy to export to Brazil, if the opportunity came about at those prices.
Did you see the banana peel? Apparently neither did Senator Obama. I have heard two different recordings (both of the same speech) in which he spoke about people “clinging” to their beliefs, whether those might be religious, or social prejudice, or second amendment rights. The Clinton campaign and McCain have both siezed on that and focus on the word “bitter” in his characterizations of small town America. It bodes ill for Senator Obama in Pennsylvania, but it goes further than that. Many of the remaining contests could tilt in favor of Senator Clinton, IF she doesn't overdo.
We picked up the DVD of No Country for Old Men the multi-Oscar winning movie from the Cohen brothers, Joel and Ethan. No shortage of talented hands on this project. Splattered with violence and very high quality performances from legendary stars, the outstanding acting from the villain, played by Javier Bardem (who deservedly won Best Actor Oscar 2008). It was a chilling portrayal of a maniac without the caricature exaggeration typical in lesser films.
Love
Stafford “Doc” Williamson
