14 DAY TRIAL // Police officers in Australia are now investigating the case of a newborn baby that was abandoned in a sewer in west Sydney, Australia, by his own mother and that somehow managed to survive without any food or water for several days until he was finally rescued.
Thus, the baby boy is said to have been thrown in the sewer sometime towards the beginning of last week, most likely on Tuesday. He was only discovered this past Sunday by a group of cyclists who chanced to hear his cries and alerted authorities.
How the baby was rescued
As mentioned, it was only yesterday that the baby, believed to be about a week old, was found and rescued. It is understood that the first people to come across the newborn were a man named David Otte and his 18-year-old daughter.
The two say that, while cycling, they heard some weird noises coming from the bottom of a sewer drain. At first, they believed that the wailing was from a kitten. However, they soon realized that the sounds that drew their attention were from a baby.
“We actually thought it was a kitten at first, but when we went down there we could hear exactly what it was, you could definitely tell it was a baby screaming,” David Otte told the press in an interview, as cited by The Telegraph.
At the time David Otte and his daughter found the newborn, the sewer drain had a 440-pound (200-kilogram) concrete covering resting on top of it. Together with one other man and police officers, the two eventually managed to remove the covering and save the baby.
A very close call
The police officers in charge of handling this case say that, when found, the baby was in very poor health condition. In a nutshell, he was severely dehydrated and malnourished. In fact, chances are that he wouldn't have survived another day at the bottom of the sewer drain.
Having been pulled from the sewer, the baby was rushed to a local hospital. The doctors looking after him say that, at least for the time being, the newborn is in stable condition. Unless somebody in his family steps up and offers to take care of him, he will most likely be entrusted to authorities.
His mom was the one who threw him in the sewer
As shocking as this may sound, it appears that the boy's mother was the one who tried to get rid of him. More precisely, the woman is said to have dropped the newborn in the sewer drain through a gap in the concrete covering. The baby dropped some 2.4 meters (7.9 feet) before hitting the bottom.
The baby boy's mother, whose identity has not yet been made public, was found not long after the rescue operation. She is now in police custody and is facing attempted murder charges. Presently, it is unclear why the woman saw fit to throw her child down a sewer drain.
It is understood that the woman is scheduled to appear in front of a court of law this coming Friday. If found guilty of the charges filed against her, she risks spending up to 25 years behind bars. More so given the fact that, apparently, she has already admitted to wanting to kill the baby.
Commenting on this incident, Inspector David Lagats said, “It was a disturbing incident.” “We all thought the worst but he's still alive. I am quite relieved, once we found out how far the drop was. He's wrapped up pretty well,” the police officer added.
