Window Cleaner Shrugs Off Plaudits

Eve Norgan with lifesaver & window cleaner Ivor McKenna.

Heroic dad shrugs off plaudits for saving three-year-old's life - Eve Norgan, three, was fighting for breath after a sweet got stuck in her throat. Despite mum Gaynor's best efforts at the Heimlich manoeuvre the chocolate refused to budge. A modest dad who saved a toddler from choking has shrugged off his heroics - claiming 'it's just something I saw on the TV'.

Eve Norgan, three, was fighting for breath after a sweet got stuck in her throat. Despite mum Gaynor's best efforts at the Heimlich manoeuvre the chocolate refused to budge. The 39-year-old believes her little girl would not be here today without the help of Ivor McKenna who put her over his knee and slapped her on the back until she coughed up the Malteser.

Ivor, a window cleaner, had been shopping at Morrisons in Denton when he heard the commotion in the car park outside. "I just took over. I could see she was turning purple so I said 'give her here' and I put her over my knee and gave her a couple of good slaps on the back and it just came up" he said. "It's all a bit of a blur really. It was just one of those things.

"I don't watch much television but I was ill over Christmas and I ended up watching loads. I saw that performed on a TV programme after a Heimlich manoeuvre failed so that's where I picked it up from. "I hadn't really given it a thought until I saw the little girl choking and decided I may as well give it a go."

Mum Gaynor, Eve and partner Andy.

Dad-of-two Ivor, from Denton, left as soon as he saw that Eve was breathing again but was tracked down after an appeal in Manchester Evening News and our sister paper the Tameside Advertiser. Gaynor, who lives in Haughton Green with partner Andy and son Joseph, 15, said she wanted to say thank you properly. "I've done two first aid courses and I couldn't get the Heimlich to work. Without Ivor's help I wouldn't have Eve and I'm just so grateful to him," she said.

Ivor's partner Sarah Tweats added: "It's just so lucky that he was in the right place at the right time. "He was only there because he'd forgotten the dog food so had to go back in for it. If he'd remembered everything on the list he would already have gone. "It's so scary but he was certainly calm in a crisis. It brings a tear to my eye just thinking about it. I'm very proud of him."