by Jennifer Pritchett
Northern News Services

NNSL (Jan 22/97) - His parents are calling him a hero.

But four-year-old Taylor Thibert said he just wanted to save his baby sister when she began to choke on a piece of toilet paper last month.

It was Taylor's fast action alerting his father to the situation that saved his sister.

"Anne-Marie was choking and Taylor came to tell me right away," said Al Thibert.

When he came into the livingroom, Thibert found his baby lying on her stomach on the floor struggling to breath. He then patted her on the back and removed the piece of paper lodged in her tiny throat.

"I was pretty happy when she started crying," he said. "That was a good sign."

Thibert and his wife, Konook, are proud of their son.

"I don't think we'd have Anne-Marie here if it hadn't been for Taylor," he said.

Thibert said that they were always warning Taylor about the dangers of Anne-Marie choking -- telling him not to keep his small toys on the floor.

"We were always telling him about choking, especially now," he said. "This has gotten us really scared."

"He is a hero to me," Thibert added.

As the number one cause of death in children under a year old, choking is a serious concern for parents.

Mike Lowing, Yellowknife deputy fire chief, said that most of the ambulance calls involving children under a year old are babies with throat obstructions.

The Stanton Regional Hospital has several different pieces of equipment designed to remove objects from children's throats.

The hospital's data bank, CHIRPP, reveals that children can choke on just about anything including food, toys, and coins.

Lowing said that keeping small objects out of their reach will go a long way toward the prevention of choking.

"Wherever a child goes, it needs to be kid-proofed," he said.

A safe environment involves keeping small objects off the floor and removing breakaway parts of toys that are small enough to fit into a child's mouth.

Lowing also suggests that parents, care-givers and family members receive CPR training that teaches them how to deal with an infant choking.