Firemen rescued a newborn baby from a sewage pipe in Jinhua this week, after the child had been abandoned and flushed down the toilet by his mother.
In reporting from The Telegraph, the abandoned baby was found trapped inside a sewage pipe by firemen after locals had heard crying and called the authorities. After efforts to remove the baby from the pipe failed, the firemen sawed off the entire section of pipe containing the child and sent him to Pujiang People’s Hospital. Images were broadcast on Chinese media outlets, depicting hospital workers breaking apart the pipe with pliers to extract the baby. At just 5 pounds, and with his placenta still wrapped around his body, the child was reportedly just two-days-old. The boy is now in stable condition, although he experienced “severe bruising” from being wedged in the pipe.
Dubbed “Baby No. 59” after the incubator that held him, the child will likely be turned over to child protection services after he is strong enough to leave the hospital.
The circumstances surrounding how the baby was abandoned are still unclear. A 22-year-old woman found on the scene confessed to being the mother, although she told police that she “gave birth unexpectedly when she went to the lavatory on Saturday.” She later called her landlord to report “weird noises” in the pipes.
Even in a country where child abandonment rates are notoriously high, the story sparked outrage. On Weibo, China’s equivalent of Twitter, one user wrote, “The parents who did this have hearts even filthier than that sewerage pipe.” Other comments made similar criticisms of the parents who had abandoned the baby. While the location of the boy’s father still unknown, the child’s mother is expected to face attempted homicide charges if it is determined that she acted with malicious intent.