The DVD slip says that he uses the choking thing to extort people.

Troll spotting, dead ahead, but just in case you are being serious please go rewatch the movie and check that you have the full version. Off the top of my head here are 3 scenes:

Rockwell is opening letters from people that have saved him from choking and his friend helps him count the money in the envelope.

Rockwell and his friend are in a restaurant eating, his friend asks him to please just let them have a nice, normal meal, but Rockwell makes himself choke and gets saved by a heavy-set dude and then hugged by the man and his wife. He also makes a few comments about making sure to not get saved by a bus boy, or a poor lady with a swatch before letting the guy in the suit save him

Finally Rockwell is eating alone and starts choking only to realize the only other person in the restaurant is blind so he has to save himself using the back of a chair.


Maybe you were expecting him to extort thousands of dollars from people. Its more of a hustle or con to get the people that save him to care and then send him a few bucks here and there in the future. But as he gathers more and more "saviors" the total amount he gets becomes a decent chunk of change.

Its pretty explicit his exploiting people through his choking scam in the movie. Hard to believe someone saw the film and missed this--- even if it is not the main plot of the film.

I totally agree with you, it didn't explain what the money was paid for. Why would you send someone money if you'd saved them? And why is that extortion?

I didn't understand that either