The mother of a Chinese baby boy who was trapped in a sewage pipe and rescued by doctors won’t face criminal charges, police said on Wednesday.
They believe her claim — that it was all an accident, and the baby had not been purposely flushed, Agence France-Presse reported.
“Our investigation showed it was an accident,” a local police officer said, in the AFP report.
The 2-day-old baby — dubbed Baby No. 59, after his hospital incubator number — was discovered Saturday in a toilet pipe in a China neighborhood, after residents heard crying and went to investigate. Emergency responders couldn’t remove the baby boy completely from the pipe, so they cut around him and transported him, still encased in a metal section, to a nearby hospital for treatment.
Hospital personnel were able to cut him from the pipe and save him. He’s now listed in stable condition, recovering only from face and body scratches, various media reported. Meanwhile, Jinhua district police had been searching for days for the parents — and on Wednesday, the 22-year-old mother surfaced, saying she had kept her pregnancy a secret but gave birth prematurely when she used the bathroom on Saturday.
The baby then fell into the pipe by accident, she said, AFP reported.
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She “deeply regrets what she did,” Jinhua police said, in a New York Daily News report.
She confessed to police after they found blood-stained toilet paper, bloodied clothing and baby toys in her apartment, which is in the building where the baby was recovered. Police asked her to take a medical exam to see if she had recently given birth, and she declined but admitted she was the mother, the Daily News reported.
• Cheryl K. Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com.
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