A PREMATURE three-week-old baby was saved by firefighters after his parents noticed he was struggling to breathe and had turned blue.

The panicked mother of the baby boy, called Thomas, pulled up in the car park at Leigh Fire Station, in St Helens Road, yesterday morning begging for help for their premature son.

The frantic mother had spotted the newborn was in trouble at about 11am on Saturday while she was driving past the station.

Fire crews, who were training in the yard, administered oxygen therapy to the six-week premature baby boy at about 11.10am.

An ambulance was called and the baby was taken to Wigan Infirmary as a precaution but was said to be breathing normally after firefighters stepped in.

Watch manager Matt Keogh said his team were "taken aback" at first before kicking in to gear and rushing to help little Thomas.

He said: "We were actually in the middle of a physical training exercise on the yard when the car pulled up.

"We are used to dealing with all sorts of different emergencies away from the station but it was strange for one to arrive at the station like this.

"The lads kicked into gear straight away and we quickly took little Thomas out of the car, into the station and onto one of the vehicles where we store our medical equipment.

"Basically at some point during that process whatever had been potentially lodged in his airway was dislodged and we didn't actually have to do much more than that, it was either the sudden cold or the quick movement that did it."

Mr Keogh said the family, which included baby Thomas's mother and older sister were naturally very distressed.

He added: "It was good because we had 12 lads on the yard so there was plenty of people to help calme them down, obviously mum was very relieved afterwards.

"We actually spring scenarios like this on the lads sometimes but it is a bit different when it happens for real, but they were all superb."