BEIJING — A newborn’s cries from a public restroom in a residential building in eastern China led to a startling discovery: The baby boy was trapped in a sewage pipe beneath a squat toilet.
Firefighters, unable to pull the baby out, ended up sawing away a section of the pipe and carrying it to a hospital, where it was delicately pried apart to save the infant.
Video of the two-hour rescue of Baby No. 59 — so named because of his incubator number in the hospital in the city of Jinhua — was shown on Chinese news programs and websites Monday and Tuesday.
A 22-year-old woman who raised the initial alarm about the trapped newborn has confessed to police that she is the infant’s mother, the state-run Zhejiang News website said. The woman, whose name was not revealed in state media reports, was questioned after police searched her rented room and found toys and blood-stained toilet paper, the report said.
The single woman, a tenant in the building, told police she could not afford an abortion and secretly delivered the child in the toilet. She said the newborn slipped into the sewer line and she alerted her landlord of the trapped baby after she could not pull the child out, Zhejiang News said
The baby, who weighed 6 pounds, 2.8 ounces, had a low heart rate and some minor abrasions on his head and limbs, according to Zhejiang Online, the province’s official news site.
News of the baby’s ordeal was met with horror and pity by bloggers on Chinese sites.
The rescue prompted an outpouring from strangers who came to the hospital with diapers, baby clothes, powdered milk, and offers to adopt him.