Izak Bester recovers from a life-saving emergency tracheotomy given by his girlfriend Sarah Glass after he began choking on a piece of steak at a barbecue.

He was "as good as dead anyway" so his girlfriend made a risky, split-second decision to stop him choking at a barbecue - she cut his airway with a Stanley knife.

Hastings man Izak Bester said the emergency tracheotomy could have had major personal and professional implications for his girlfriend Sarah Glass - a midwife.

"She's definitely a hero - it's pretty amazing but if I died or been brain damaged she would have carried that for the rest of her life," Bester said.

SUPPLIED Paramedics treat Izak Bester after his girlfriend Sarah Glass performed a life saving emergency tracheotomy on him when he choked on a piece of steak.

"But she said it was a no-brainer because I was dead already," the Hastings crematorium and cemetery manager said.

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Glass felt she was no hero and if she hadn't have made the cut someone else would have.

SUPPLIED Tim Sweeney, Sarah Joyce, Warwick and Annie Frogley, Sarah Glass and Izak Bester gather at Izak's hospital bedside.

As Bester began to turn from purple to almost black and his heartbeat stopped Glass said the decision was made for her.

"We had no choice - it was do that or he was dead," Glass said.

The couple were having a barbecue with friends at a farm near Waimarama Beach, Hawke's Bay, last month when Bester choked on a piece of steak then passed out after friends tried the Heimlich manoeuvre.

Glass's friend grabbed the knife to perform the emergency procedure and she cut into his throat just below his Adam's apple.

She said the group went into full "emergency mode" and calmly went about trying to save Bester. Her friend had a home birth kit with an oxygen tank, which was used to keep oxygen flowing to Bester's brain.

If it weren't for the oxygen doctors said he would have suffered brain damage or organ failure if he lived, Bester said.

The 50-year-old was in an induced coma for nearly three days and kept in hospital for another week.

Now - despite a sore chest - the father-of-two is making a full recovery.

Bester was full of praise for Glass and his friends.

"They just never gave up - they did CPR for 30 minutes."

Since the incident Glass has been asked how she was able to perform the risky, high-stress procedure.

"I think anyone could do it if they're looking at someone they care about and it's the only thing that will keep them alive."