The
fall of a newborn baby into a toilet pipe in China was accidental and his
mother will not be prosecuted, local officials said Wednesday, adding the boy
is healthy. The mother, 22 and unmarried, had kept her pregnancy secret and
gave birth unexpectedly when she went to the lavatory on Saturday
The newborn fell into the squat toilet and became stuck in the
tube, police in Jinhua in the eastern province of Zhejiang said earlier. Firefighters
and doctors spent nearly an hour taking a section of the 10-centimetre
(four-inch) diameter pipe apart piece by piece with pliers and saws before they
could recover the boy, whose placenta was still attached, said previous media
reports.
“Our
investigations showed it was an accident,” a local police officer who declined
to be named told AFP, and confirmed the mother will not be prosecuted. She
refused to give further details.
The
incident triggered hundreds of thousands of comments on China’s hugely popular
weibos, services similar to Twitter, with users astonished by the circumstances
and expressing good wishes for the baby.
From the
time he was found until when he was taken out, the 2.3-kilogram (five-pound)
baby was stuck in the tube for two to three hours, authorities and media
reports said previously.
He
suffered some cuts to his face and limbs and was put in an incubator at the
Pujiang People’s Hospital, they said, where nurses dubbed him “Baby No 59″
after the machine’s number.
The head
of the hospital, Wu Xinhong, said the infant was healthy and ready to be
released.
“His
condition is good but his relatives have not come to pick him up yet,” he told
AFP.
Police
have said the mother was in serious condition due to complications from the
delivery, while authorities were still looking for the baby’s father.
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