AN off-duty doctor has been presented with a thank you card and flowers for saving the life of a boy on his way to only his second day at school.

Dr Abdul Ashish performed the Heimlich manoeuvre on four-year-old Stefan Balogun to dislodge a £1 coin from his lunch money he had swallowed and was choking on.

The consultant respiratory physician had spotted Stefan’s mum Michelle pulling over her car on Newton Road, Lowton, and banging on his back to try to dislodge the coin while driving on September 5.

Dr Ashish stopped his car and, with the assistance of another passer-by in former serviceman James Green, freed the coin from Stefan’s airway into his oesophagus so he could breathe again.

“I really am no hero but simply did what any one of our staff would do to help a mum in a state of panic,” Dr Ashish said.

“I do feel glad that I was able to help Stefan and his mum.

“Stefan was in quite a bit of distress, as you can imagine. His eyes were bloodshot.

“It was a very emotionally charged moment but between myself and James we managed to dislodge the coin.”

After staying with Stefan until an ambulance arrived to take him to Warrington Hospital, where Stefan vomited the coin out of his body, Dr Ashish went back to work at Wigan’s Royal Albert Edward Infirmary.

Michelle and Stefan presented him with the thank you card and flowers in an emotional reunion there.

Michelle also thanked the other passers-by who stopped to help.

Veteran James banged on Stefan’s back in an attempt to remove the coin before Dr Ashish was on hand to help, PC Phil Healy diverted traffic and an unknown builder called for an ambulance.

She said: “I know if these people hadn’t come to help it could have been much worse.”

Michelle, from Warrington, was driving Stefan to the reception class at Green Meadow Independent Primary School in Lowton when the incident occurred.

She said: “He had managed to get inside his book bag, into an envelope and get the coin out and tried to swallow it.

“It was just meant to be that there was a respiratory doctor right behind me in his car.

"It was like fate.”

Dr Ashish added: “I have removed all coins and mints from both mine and my wife's car ¬– ?I never want to see a child in that situation again.”