Early Wednesday morning, when the rest of the country was busy celebrating Independence Day, Geetha, a 45-year-old homemaker, heard faint cries near her house in Valasarvakkam, Chennai. When a milkman prompted that the cries seemed to be coming from a storm drain on Sixth Street in SVS Nagar, she rushed to the spot. To her horror, Geetha found a newborn baby stuck inside the storm drain.
Geetha knelt down and carefully pulled the baby out of the drain only to find that the newborn was being choked by his umbilical cord, which was wrapped around his neck. She untangled the cord and asked the neighbours to fetch some water. Geetha then cleaned the baby and rushed him to the Institute Of Child Health (ICH) in Egmore.
Speaking to The News Minute, Geetha said, “I heard the crying sounds and ran out as soon as the milkman told me. 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.” According to the report, she immediately informed the police about the abandoned newborn, who was then kept in an incubator at the hospital.
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A police officer told NDTV: “A milkman alerted us following which we reached the spot immediately. Fortunately there was no water in the place where the infant was kept. The baby is fine. He is presently at the government children’s hospital, Egmore. We will send him to a children’s home later.”
Heaet wrenching, newbirn baby abandoned in a storm water pipe in Chennai with the umbelical cord around ita neck strangulating it. pic.twitter.com/ht6lpnRFsc
— Pramod Madhav (@madhavpramod1) August 15, 2018
Videos of the incident landed up on social media and are now going viral. Reportedly, people are even asking if they can adopt the baby. Geetha says that she is willing to adopt him herself if she is allowed. For now, she has named the child ‘Sugandhiram’, which means ‘freedom’ in Tamil, as the baby was found on Independence Day. “He can grow up freely,” Geetha told TNM.
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Officials from the Social Welfare Department said the parents should utilise the cradle scheme of the State government, instead of abandoning babies. “We will take care of the child and send it to a recognised home,” said an official.
The baby has now been placed under the Cradle Baby Scheme of the government.
