OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — A 51-year-old man died a week after choking on a bite of meat at a New Year’s Eve party.

Brian O’Neill died Saturday at the Nebraska Medical Center.

Family members say O’Neill will be remembered as someone who always made others feel important and made family a priority. His wife, Joan, and their twin 20-year-old sons were at the hospital when he died.

O’Neill choked on a piece of meat that became lodged in his airway on New Year’s Eve. Attempts to dislodge the meat with the Heimlich maneuver failed, and a doctor tried unsuccessfully to open O’Neill’s airway with a steak knife.