Quick action saves baby dumped into toilet pit

Quick action by some residents of Fitz-Hughes saved the life of a newborn baby on Wednesday morning.

The baby boy, umbilical cord still attached, was fished from a latrine pit by a female dressed in a black dress, while angry residents shouted instructions and a few recorded the rescue with cellular devices.

On Thursday, the Police Public Relations Department said that the baby was alive and the person who is alleged to have given birth and dumped the child was a patient at the Milton Cato Memorial Hospital. No charges have yet been laid and the name of the mother has not been released to the media.{{more}}

On Wednesday, a video surfaced on social media showing the child’s rescue. In the video, you can hear a male voice, visibly angry, telling the rescuer to be careful not to shove the child deeper into the pit, while someone suggests that a smaller person try to retrieve the child from the hole in the ground.

“Somebody get a piece of rake or something nah…look the pickney dey ah move, the thing dey ah move,” said the angry man, while using a plethora of expletives. The male also calls the name of the accused, stressing, “she lock up, she lock up…the pickney ah breathe, it ah breathe,” as the child is pulled from the pit.

Villagers then wrapped the baby in a blanket and rushed it to the clinic in Chateaubelair.

A Fitz-Hughes man with knowledge of the situation said that the person who is being accused of dumping the child is a mother of four other children and is known to consume huge amounts of alcohol.

“She drinks and it sometimes affects her, makes her mentally unstable. She had a nervous breakdown, but she was telling people she was not pregnant,” said the villager, who noted that around 11:30 a.m. Wednesday, the woman’s neighbours heard a baby crying and went searching the source and found the abandoned child.

It is alleged that the accused, who lives with her grandmother, collapsed in the road after giving birth and was rushed to the nearby medical facility.

“People real vex about it, but from what people saying, she was saying she not pregnant because of who the father was,” explained the villager.

The baby is currently being treated at the Milton Cato Hospital.