Rosie O’Donnell’s Quick Thinking Saves 90-Year-Old Woman From Choking in Dublin Hotel

"Okay, I wasn't sure I was going to tell this story. I'm going to record it and see how it sounds because, uh, well what a story! So last night, I did my show at the International Comedy Club in preparation for the Edinburgh Festival. And, uh, it went okay, it didn't go great because I, I'm having trouble memorizing some parts of it and I've got two weeks to go and I can do it, but, um, you know, it's daunting to say the least. But the people were great and very receptive and, you know, allowed me to use my little cheat sheet when I needed to and at the end part I wrote a new part about the last time I saw my mother and it's very, very emotional for me to do. So, uh, at the end, I took out the script and read it and of course, started crying and, uh, so I was very emotional, very emotional. And my cousin Mary from, from, uh, up near Belfast and her friend Kiki had come to see it. Mary's a director and she's married, actually married to my cousin Margaret. And, um, wonderful notes, wonderful, helpful, beautiful stuff. And we stopped at the Dillon Hotel on the way home to get dinner and it was about 8:15, 8:30 when we got there.

And at about 9:10, I look across the restaurant and, you know, I'm a hyper-vigilant person. They say, you know, kids who come from kind of trauma-based backgrounds sometimes develop a hyper-vigilance and, and I definitely have that. Like, I always scan. I'm trying to figure people out and understand where I am and if everybody's safe and well. I see a 90-year-old woman choking. And she's with two women in her, they're 50s would be my guess. And I jump into action like I'm an EMT, which I'm not, I'm a stand-up comedian, actress, you know. So this is a pub, a beautiful where the pub area in, in Dublin, me eating my, uh, tuna tartare. And I go that woman is choking, that woman is choking! And I get up, I like nearly knock over the table. I run over with Kiki and my cousin, my cousin Mary. We run over to the woman and she's stood, I we stand her up and I, we put Kiki behind her and put her fist. I put her fist in the right place and she starts to give her the Heimlich, which she hadn't done before, which was very interesting. And I'm holding her hands and talking to her and saying, it's okay, it's okay. Can you breathe? And I put my hand near her and she could not breathe at all and she started getting red in the face. And, now, my heart is going, you know, and I'm one of those people who in a crisis I'm great but after the crisis, I'm a mess. I'm a mess. So it took about a minute. Halfway through, I scream at the top of my lungs in this restaurant. "Call 911!" Well, guess what? There is no 911 in Ireland, it's 999. But I scream this.

And, uh, I'm thinking nobody else is coming to help, nobody from the hotel or the restaurant. Not that anyone knew what to do. I mean, I knew how to do the Heimlich and I had taken a course in it and, so I'm, I'm coaching Kiki who's doing it. I'm telling her what to do and I'm trying to calm the woman down and the daughters are upset and, and my other my cousin Mary puts, you know, the napkin, the serviette as they call it here, in front of her and says, "It's okay. Get it out, get it out." And we did, I pushed her hand, the my Kiki's hand, and she got it and something came out. A big wad of stuff. And, um, it was unbelievable to me because I was thinking, am I going to have to do a tracheotomy, you know? Like, I, I took a course and it told, they told you what to do if it wasn't working and you were in dire situation. And we were in a dire situation, you know. I didn't know. I didn't, listen, in panic mode, I, I go into thinking I'm Superman or something and I'm not. You know, I'm not. I'm not an EMT. I'm, I'm not somebody, but when I see like something like that, I spring into action. So, the woman's name was Angela. She was 90 years old, 90 years old. And, uh, we're all sort of crying. I'm, I'm like trying to keep myself together and, okay, I say, you know, "God, God bless you and God bless all of us that, uh, you know, we were able to help each other." And, so I go back to my table and I can't eat. I can't, my heart is going. I'm teary, I'm and I look over and there's Angela finishing her meal.

And the two women sitting next to us who, who I, of course, because I'm hyper-vigilant, when I came in, I noticed that they noticed me and knew that it was me. And, um, it's my cousin's phone. She's, they stayed over here last night. Let me just turn that off. I think it's her alarm. Okay. Um, the two women next to us, Fiona and I believe Molly, Fiona and Molly, um, a little younger than, than me. Uh, they introduced themselves. They had been standing and they were like, "I couldn't believe you did that. I couldn't believe it happened. How did you know she was choking?" I'm like, "I'm a hyper-vigilant person. I'm always kind of looking around and taking the temperature and checking people's moods and seeing about safety, you know?" Unreal, unreal. Hold, please. Okay, anyway, I just want everyone to know that the international sign for I'm choking is this. It's this. You do this and everyone who know, you got to know this. This is the sign for I'm choking. If you ever feel like you're choking and you can't, do this, do this. Right? Because you can't speak because there's no air to go through your vocal chords, right?

So just know everyone, if anyone is, you know, is choking or if you're choking, this is the sign that you do. Um, so we taught everyone that in the little hotel bar area. And, uh, it was so overwhelming. It really was. And here's the wildest part. So I get home and, you know, I'm still, still so anxious and so thrown. I'm worrying that Angela's okay. And I go to bed and, um, I wake up at 5:00 a.m. like I do every morning. And I have a little text from my friend Chris Cuomo, the news reporter. And he says, "I hear you saved a 90-year-old woman from choking in a hotel last night." I'm like, "Who are you with the CIA? How the hell would you know that? How did Chris Cuomo know that that's what had just happened to me?" He's so funny. And then he writes back, I had written, "How did you know that?" You know, and in when I saw it. And he writes back this morning, "Don't you know who I am?" And I wrote back, "Yeah, you're Chris Cuomo, right? From NewsNation? You're Governor Cuomo's child, aren't you?" Like, I thought, was it somebody in the restaurant who happened to have my number? Like, he goes, "No, no, I was speaking metaphorically in the text." He goes, "Yeah, it's me." I'm like, "Holy sh*t, Chris, I can't believe you knew." He wouldn't tell me how he knew. Would not tell me how he knew. That guy's an investigative journalist, ladies and gentlemen.

But I just wanted to say that if Angela or you or her daughters are watching, I'm so happy that everything turned out okay and Angela, I hope you're feeling good this morning at 8:20 here in Dublin. Really an unbelievable night. You know, sometimes God puts you in the right place at the right time and you figure out what to do or what to say. And, uh, it's like God winks at you, you know? And you feel this electricity in your body during it or after it. And you just want to say amen and thank you, you know. Amen and thank you. And that's what I feel this morning for having gotten to participate in helping a woman in trouble, you know. And even though Donald Trump says I'm a threat to humanity, I'm not a threat to humanity here in Dublin. I'm saving old women while I'm at dinner.

All right, I hope that doesn't sound too braggaly. I just wanted to tell the story, especially since who knows if it's going to be all over because Chris Cuomo knows, so maybe he's going to do it on his show, but, uh, I don't get it. I, I really don't. Life is so strange sometimes, isn't it? What you're, what you're handed and what you deal with. Anyway, hope to see you at the Fringe Festival in Scotland and I hope I have it memorized by then and I hope again Angela is okay. TikTok, you don't stop. Peace out. God wink."