Rescuers Save Newborn From Sewage Pipe in China

A newborn’s cries from a public restroom in a residential building in eastern China led a tenant to a startling discovery: a baby boy trapped in a sewage pipe beneath a squat toilet.

Firefighters, unable to pull the baby out, ended up sawing away an L-shaped section of the pipe and carried 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 Pujiang area of the city of Jinhua — was shown on Chinese news programs and websites late Monday and Tuesday.

The baby, who weighed 2.8 kilograms (6 pounds, 2.8 ounces), had a low heart rate and some minor abrasions on his head and limbs, but was mostly unhurt, according to Zhejiang Online, the province’s official news site.

In China, reports of babies being abandoned are common and fuel public anger against a strict one-child policy that imposes huge fines on parents who violate the rules. The policy has been blamed as a factor in causing parents to abandon unwanted children, although they are usually baby girls because of a traditional preference for males.

This article appeared in print on page 8 of the May 29th, 2013 edition of Hamodia.