Arthur Lih

Original Air Date: March 31, 2024

Arthur Lih invented Lifevac, a life-saving anti-choking device and now serves as its CEO. But his life almost ended in suicide.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Welcome to Sunstein Sessions on iHeartRadio,conversations about issues that matter. Here's your
host, three time Greasy Award winner, Shelley Sunstein. You have heard me
talk about Life Back on air.It is a life saving anti choking device,
and I'm so honored to have withme this morning the inventor and the

(00:22):
CEO of Life Back, Arthur Lee. So welcome, thank you, Thank
you so much for having me inthe kind words and helping spread awareness to
try and save more lives. Igreatly appree that's what it's all about.
And March twenty eighth actually was ChokingAwareness Day. And so how did you

(00:44):
come up with this idea? Well, it was about eleven years ago.
Now. I was visiting a friendin the hospital. His mom was having
something done and I was just keepinghim company and he told me that the
last timony was there, A sevenyear old was there that choked to death.
And he explained the pain and theanguish to parents to staff him.

(01:06):
And my daughter was seven and nothinghad worked as far as back blows or
chest compressions or abdominal truss and itjust stuck to me thinking of my seven
year old, because it's so horrible. They would die right in your arms.
You only got four minutes, sevenminutes, and that haunted me,
and I said, I got todo something to save her. And then

(01:30):
I kind of felt obligated that howcould I be the only one? How
could I know I could save mydaughter? And hear about a child that
choked to death? So I perseveredto bring it to everyone. Did you
have a medical background? Not aclue. I actually was a transportation company

(01:51):
that I owned and I had soldand I actually was set to retire and
then decided to work insane amounts forthe next eleven years. But how how
did you actually come up with thisdevice? I mean you must have tried
different combinations. How did this allwork? Well? First thing I did.

(02:14):
The good thing about our technology nowadaysis research. You can find pretty
much anything if you're willing to digenough. I found two studies, one
in Canada one in the US fromthe late seventies, and I was able
to find the force necessary or developedor made by like abdominal druss. So

(02:36):
I knew how much force I neededto generate. And then I tried different
methods of super simple. You know, there's always been suction devices but they
have tubes and you put them inyour throat, and I just knew i'd
be too scared, So I perseveredto make something that would work if you
never saw it, you just grabbedit and had to save a life.

(03:00):
And I actually went to home depotand looked at the plumbing supplies and I
found a little plunger and I puton my face that night and I pulled
it and it made a pop.And I said, if I can change
this from pushing to pulling, Ithink I got some And that's what I
did. And that was what year, jeez, eleven years ago. So

(03:23):
whatever that was, I'd need acalculator. So is it? How easy
is life fact to use? Howdo you use it? Well? That
was the real key that the simplicity. So basically, think of a little
plunger, like a little sync plungerthat you push down right, so it

(03:44):
has a mask on it that goesover your face child and adult mask.
You push it down and then youtug it and it creates a suction pop.
So the simplicity is placed push pull, and you know the blessing is
up. Very early on, alittle boy was saved and the grandparents had

(04:04):
gotten it for the daughter, andshe didn't look at it. She threw
the closet, said, you guysare worry warts. Well, sure enough,
her son choked on carrot and shetook it out and never read anything,
never looked at anything, never sawanything, and she saved his life.
And that was my goal. Wow, is this only for children?

(04:29):
No, every mask, every kidcontains an adult mask and a child mask.
You could save yourself. You canuse it on yourself because carr't jump
on a chair. Thing isn't toogood. And we've saved it's almost split.
We've saved like fourteen hundred children andwe're coming up on two thousand lives.

(04:50):
Are there any restrictions, like interms of somebody older or somebody who's
obese. No, I mean allthe advantages of the lack of potential to
be done on something like the HeimlichYou know, your husband's big or small,

(05:11):
you can't get your arms around them, vice versa. A person in
a wheelchair they have no option.Someone who's in bed. You know,
the the variance of size of rescuerversus rescuee. So it really is the
great equalizer. Everyone could push downa plunger and give it a tug,
and to me, that's been huge. And we've had grandparents save their grandchildren.

(05:35):
We've had parents save their parents,and that that was all the access
storial. You know, I didit because I didn't want my child to
die. Then I wanted other parentsto be able to do it, and
then all the magic happened. Youknow, people in wheelchairs, people in
beds, people with disabilities, andpeople saving themselves. How much time does

(06:02):
a person have to save a lifewhen somebody is choking, because I'm thinking
of the woman who threw this inthe back of a closet and had to
go get it. And you know, there is a time talking about endence,
right, not about four minutes.You know, on the on the

(06:23):
low side, you can make itup to maybe you're pretty much going to
be into brain damage at vibe andpeople have survived more than that. But
you know what it is kind ofthat hurry up and wait. You know,
if you sit there and count sitfor four minutes there und the clock,
it's a long time. It's nota long time when that life is

(06:45):
going, you know, so lifeback is recommended after protocols. So someone's
choking by all means you know,we preach to get trained, do the
Heimlich and if it doesn't work,to have a light back. Where should
people keep their life back? Well, most people I've seen in the kind
of the domestic world, they keepit in the kitchen. You know numerous

(07:10):
stories either above on the fridge,in the cabinet. In the schools,
it usually goes in the nurse's office, the cafeteria, the principal and the
phys director. Corporations usually put itlike Costco. Every Costco has a life
back and it's mounted right next todefibrillator. We've been able to save four

(07:30):
lives in Costcos all over the world. So we're seeing more and more companies
take corporate responsibility and protect their customers. Should people practice the life back when
they first get it, that's agreat question. These kind of all go
back to my initial ethics. Imade it last forever. The home kit

(07:54):
includes a plastic mask so you canpractice, or you know, the babysitter
coming, you make sure she knowshow to do it. It's really simple,
takes you know, a minute,two minutes, just show him how
to do it. We make itin America and if you ever use it,
we give you a free one,so it's a one time in a
lifetime thing. My hope is thatyou get it in twenty years from now,

(08:18):
you put it in the recycle binand you smile because you never used
it. But if you look atour hallsays now has sixteen hundred pictures on
it. I'm just in there todayreading the pictures seeing you know, all
the things plastic watermelon pennies, toysthat people choke on, and how quickly

(08:43):
a life could be devastated. I'mspeaking with Arthur Lee. He is the
inventor and CEO of life Back,which is a choking rescue device. How
can people get life back? Thebest way to do it is go to
life back net and you can getit there. It's also available on Amazon.

(09:05):
The safest way is to go tolifeback dot net and the price it's
sixty nine dollars. It usually canget a discount code if you look the
But like I said, it's madeAmerica, last forever, covers children,
adults, and you know you'll neverneed another one. If you use it,
I'll give you a free once andagain. That's spelled l I F

(09:28):
E VAC. You are on acampaign to get the Life Act device in
every single school. Yeah, wesince we started, Since I started the
team here, we hare almost onehundred children and choked to death in school
every year, about eight I thinkthe averages eight kids die every single year.

(09:54):
So I offer one free to everyschool in America. I was in
a budget meeting in Wisconsin and theysaid, oh, you know, we
don't have the budget. So Ijust said, well then I'll give it
to you. So then I expendedit to every school. So we've been
blessed to give away about eight thousandso far. We've still got a long

(10:15):
way to go. Last week wehad to save in school. We've saved
I believe twenty one students in variousforms of nursery, school and grade school.
How does that feel to save somany lives, To be the one
person responsible for saving so many lives. Well, when I was in my

(10:39):
twenties, I was in a caraccident. My two best friends died in
front of me, and oh mygod, yeah, I really didn't want
to live for twenty years. Andevery time we save a life, I
think of that two decades of helland pain, and I look and I
say, they don't have to gothrough that. And that's my biggest gratitude.

(11:01):
You know, the person saved,Yes, that's a beautiful thing.
But I can feel for the survivors, the ones that still don't have the
pain I had, And that's alwaysbeen a driving factor for me that I
know. You know, when Iwalk in that whole save and I see
sixteen hundred, I know every oneof those families don't have to feel the

(11:22):
way I felt. And to me, that's that's the greatest gift I could
ever give. How did you ever, I can't say get over it,
because you never get over it.How did you ever stop being paralyzed by

(11:43):
what transpired in front of you?I just wrote a book it's called Can't
Is a Lie, and it kindof shows you some of the things I
leaned on. But basically it wasmy empathy. I knew if I I
decided to take my own life,it would kill my mother because she I
knew she wouldn't be able to surviveafter seeing the carnage of my poor friends

(12:07):
and their families. So I didn'treally want to live. I just knew
that I couldn't selfishly do that toher. And I think in the beginning,
you just got to find a reasonnot to die. Not the hope
that some great things are going tohappen, just the foundational non negotiable and

(12:28):
that just kept me going. Andthen honestly till my daughter was born,
and then I was I started tobe glad. I was alive. Wow,
we only have a few minutes left. Arthur Lee, the inventor and
CEO of Life Back, and youcan reach life Back at l ifevac dot

(12:54):
net. Anything else we haven't touchedon here that you would like our audience
to know about you, or lifeact or your book. I think that
you are a very good interviewer.I have not shared to that depth on
a Life Back interview. I dothink the book would be worth it in
that realm. But I'm just gratefulfor this voice. The more people we

(13:20):
could save, the less people thathave that pain. One child every five
days, five thousand a year chokedto death, orth leading COOS accidental death.
And we're making a dB I mean, we saved over a thousand lives
last year. That's really tremendous.By the way, how do you even
find every single school in the UnitedStates, Well, there's about one hundred

(13:41):
thousand of them, So what Irely on is people like yourself that have
a voice and are willing to tryand help and share and spread the message.
You know, I don't mind givingthem away. Life short, I'll
be all right, but it's hardto let them all know. And I'm
I'm so sorry for the pain thatyou yourself endured. I mean, yes,

(14:05):
so just an amazing thing, savingso many lives. You've been listening
to Sunstein sessions on iHeartRadio, aproduction of New York's classic rock Q one
O four point three