A BABY CALLED FREEDOM: Woman rescues newborn from flooded drain with umbilical cord wrapped around his neck
A newborn baby with his umbilical cord wrapped around his neck was pulled out of a drain alive. The shocking discovery was made by a milkman who was passing when he heard the screams of a child crying coming from a drain nearby. The incident which took place in Chennai in southern India was captured by an onlooker.
The video shows a woman, known only as Geeta, reaching out in the drain to pull the infant out. She carefully pulls the infant out and gently unwraps the umbilical cord that was wrapped around the baby's neck. She then cleans the baby with a bowl of water. Seeing the situation, Geeta knew that there was no time to waste and she had to do something immediately.
"I reacted immediately, it was spontaneous," she told the local media, as reported by Mirror. While many onlookers stood there hearing the child's cry, Geeta peeped through the drain and saw the small child crying. "It was painful to see a child dumped like that. It appeared that the person who abandoned the boy had deliberately pushed him deep enough inside the drain so he would be out of sight," she said.
Geeta says that whoever left the child there was to ensure that someone would not spot him. "I don't think there was any feeling for the child, because the umbilical cord seemed to be tied around the neck so it would slowly kill him," she continued. The baby was immediately rushed to the local Egmore Hospital where the doctors realized that the baby had trouble breathing.
Speaking to The News Minute, Geeta said that the only thing on her mind was to save the child. "For me, saving the life of the baby was most important. I didn’t care about anything else at that point. It had rained all of last evening. If it had rained like that this morning as well, the baby would have been swept away. It leads to the drainage from that point," she said. After the baby was rushed to the hospital, he was kept at the incubator at the Egmore hospital.
Geeta also named the child. “I named him Sugandhiram because I found him on [India's] Independence Day. From today, he is Sugandhiram(which means freedom). He can grow up freely,” she said. The local police said, “no case has been filed. The child has been handed over and is receiving treatment at the Government Hospital For Women and Children in Egmore. The baby is doing fine. We will decide upon further action accordingly.”
While many calls have been made to the hospital with people willing to adopt Sugandhiram, Geeta says she would love to raise him as well. “I am at home now. I used to be in the cine field. I was at my daughter’s house when this happened. I love children. Even now, if they give me the child, I will raise him well. But wherever the child is, he should be happy. He has suffered enough," she said.