Naked and blue with cold: dumped newborn baby survives Typhoon Kalmaegi
'This little guy is very strong', police say as they name the infant after a 'seagull' for braving the storm
A newborn baby that was abandoned on a filthy Dongguan riverbank managed to survive a night of Typhoon Kalmaegi’s lashing rains and winds, before he was found.
The baby, found naked and bruised with sand in his mouth, was rushed to hospital on Tuesday.
Policeman Li Xiaolong, who was called to the scene, said the child even had 20 centimetres of umbilical cord attached. Li said it was believed that the baby was born on Monday amid a downpour.
Though it would be several hours before Kalmaegi would officially make landfall in Guangdong, there were already heavy rains from the typhoon on Monday evening.
”The baby’s whole body had turned blue. [He] was shaking from the cold and crying, but couldn’t make any sound. The condition was very critical,” Li told the Southern Metropolis Daily.
The river where the boy was found was flowing with sewage and had been closed off from the surrounding factories and apartment blocks. The riverbank, infested with flies and rats, is covered in the trash thrown from apartment windows.