"I'll be the first to admit, when I saw the boy slumped to the side with his eyes rolled back, I actually didn't think he was alive," Norberg, 46, recalled Friday morning.
The toddler might not be today but for Norberg's quick thinking and CPR training.
With the child's frantic parents hovering nearby, Norberg pulled the boy out of the car and gently laid him on a blanket on the ground. About 20 spectators had gathered, Norberg learned later.
"I guessed maybe his airway might be clogged," said Norberg, a policeman for 15 years. "So I rolled him onto his side, keeping his head elevated, and I was tapping his back. ... I started doing two-finger light compressions."
Norberg said he lost track of time. "You're not really thinking, you're not looking," he said. "I've got two kids. I'm thinking, 'This could be my kid.' You're doing this like it's your own child -- because he's just an innocent little child."
At some point, the child came back to life.
"He started moving his hands and arms, and his eyes started to come back down," Norberg said. "That's when [Chicago Fire] Engine No. 124 showed up."
The boy's parents later told Norberg that the boy had been sick for a couple of days and that they were on their way to the hospital when they saw Norberg's squad car.
Norberg stayed with the family at the emergency room at Swedish Covenant Hospital.
Friday, the grateful mother told reporters how happy she was that Norberg was there to save her son, Sergio Martinez Real.
"Yesterday, I thanked him because maybe if he wasn't there maybe my baby would die," Maribel Real said.
Norberg gave Sergio a navy blue Chicago Police Department T-shirt and a "Hug me. It's the Law" shirt to Sergio's sister, 5-year-old Karen Martinez Real.
Maribel Real knew her boy was OK on Friday because he wanted to go to Target, his favorite store.
Norberg doesn't see himself as heroic.
"As a policeman, if you do something like that, it's just part of your job," he said.
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