BEIJING: A newborn boy was rescued from a sewage pipe in an apartment building after becoming stuck down a toilet, police said yesterday. The unmarried mother, 22, hid her pregnancy from neighbours for fear of being ostracised, in Jinhua in the eastern province of Zhejiang.
She gave birth unexpectedly when she went to the lavatory on Saturday, and the baby fell into the squat toilet. She telephoned her landlord, claiming she heard “weird noises” in the pipe, and the proprietor called in police after spotting the infant.
Attempts to pull him out failed, so rescuers sawed away a section of the 10cm diameter conduit with the baby inside and took him to hospital. Firefighters and doctors spent nearly an hour taking the tube apart piece by piece with pliers and saws and recovered the newborn, whose placenta was still attached. From the time he was found until when he was taken out, the baby was stuck in the tube for two to three hours. “The woman admitted (she was the mother) when we asked her,” police said, adding they were looking for the boy’s father. The 2.3kg boy suffered some cuts and was put in an incubator, but the mother was in a serious condition due to complications from the delivery. AFP
