A newborn baby in China flushed down a toilet by his parents was rescued from a sewage pipe in the eastern province of Zhejiang after neighbors heard cries emanating from plumbing alerting them to the infant’s plight.
Residents of the apartment block in Jinhua heard the baby crying after he was flushed down a fourth floor squat toilet and called police.
Attempts to pull the five pound, two day old baby boy from the toilet directly were unsuccessful, and rescuers were forced to resort to sawing apart the piping piece by piece resulting in the infant’s dramatic rescue. The intact pipe was brought to a hospital, where surgeons and emergency workers collaborated to free the baby.
When he was finally freed from the sewage pipe, the Chinese baby flushed down the toilet in Jinhau was discovered to still have his placenta and umbilical cord attached.
In China, the baby’s narrowly avoided fate has sparked intense outcry against his parents. Australian news sources report that the infant’s 22-year-old mother was on scene for the rescue and delivered the baby unexpectedly while using the bathroom.
A police officer said after the rescue of the newborn flushed down the toilet:
“Fortunately the baby survived. But the [parents] still suspected of attempted murder.”
On Sina Weibo, a Chinese social media site similar to Twitter, users lambasted the baby’s parents. The case struck a strong chord particularly following the death of another newborn abandoned in a dumpster in the province of Hebei, and one user posted:
“This should be sentenced to death, they are killing their own baby. This is not the only abandoned baby case I saw in the past ten days, one threw in dumpster and died; the other one was flushed into toilet, those are not actions human beings should do.”
Another said:
“This little boy survived, he will do great in the future. The parents will never have a good life. I don’t even know how to curse them when seeing this shocking news.”
The exact sequence of events isn’t quite clear, as a plea was reported to have been posted by police to the service for the baby boy’s mother to step forward, reading:
“Mom, come back! The baby is resilient and alive. Please show up, Mom. This is your own baby and he should return to your warm embrace soon.”
The baby flushed down the toilet appears to be in good condition following the incident, but his mother is reported to be currently hospitalized following complications she experienced following the birth.