THE X FILES - DUCHOVNY LEFT RED FACED BY MEDICAL MISHAP

DUCHOVNY LEFT RED FACED BY MEDICAL MISHAP

Former THE X-FILES star DAVID DUCHOVNY still winces when he remembers the time he tried to give a heart attack sufferer the Heimlich manoeuvre. The actor was convinced his neighbour was choking when he confronted him one night in the street outside his Vancouver, Canada home - but the man was having a seizure. Embarrassed Duchovny recalls, "He gets closer and he can hardly get the words out and I'm thinking, 'Oh my God, he's choking.' I don't know the Heimlich but I'm an actor so I figure I do; I played a doctor. "So I turn him and I start pouring on trying to do my best Heimlich. I do five really hard thrusts yanking on his diaphragm and I hear him go, 'I think I'm having a heart attack!' "He needs air is what he needs and I'm actually suffocating him!" Duchovny called for the emergency services and then sat with his neighbour until help came. He met the man in a restaurant a year later. "It turns out it was an anxiety attack but I'm sure I didn't help him by giving him a bear hug... He bought me a drink. but he wasn't that thankful. He should've bought me dinner; I tried to save his life. I did the best I could."