Rescued from drain on Independence Day, baby named Freedom

CHENNAI: A newborn boy battled to stay alive, crying out till he was rescued, after being abandoned in a drain in Chennai on Wednesday — an apt reminder, perhaps, of the inalienable right to protection of life that should inform our understanding of Independence seven decades on.

Geetha, a 45-year-old resident of Valasaravakkam who rescued the baby, has named him ‘Sudanthiram’ (Freedom).

“He can now live freely (‘sudanthiramaga’, in Tamil),” said Geetha, who found the boy in the drain after hearing him cry. She cut the umbilical cord from around his neck and rushed him, with a little help from onlookers, by ambulance to Institute of Child Health and Hospital, Egmore.

Doctors who attended to the baby said that he had bruising on the neck and was dehydrated but was otherwise in good health.

Rescuer: Painful to see a child dumped like that

Geetha said her milk vendor had alerted her about the cries of a child apparently emanating from a drain on Sixth Street in SVS Nagar, Valasaravakkam. She got to the spot around 8.45am and heard the baby wail in distress.

“I reacted immediately; it was spontaneous,” she said. “As a dozen or so residents and bystanders looked on, I peeped through the drain — an iron pipe around 1ft in diameter — and saw the child inside.” She put her hands into the drain and, within seconds, had pulled the baby out by the legs.

“It was painful to see a child dumped like that,” Geetha said. “It appeared that the person who abandoned the boy had deliberately pushed him deep enough inside the drain so he would be out of sight. I don’t think there was any feeling for the child, because the umbilical cord seemed to be tied around the neck so it would slowly kill him.”

“But he managed to scream out and be found,” she said.

Shortly after she arrived with the baby at the Egmore hospital, health minister C Vijayabaskar, arrived on the spot. Informed about the rescue, the minister spoke to attending doctors and asked them to pay special attention to the baby.

An official said the infant would remain under observation in the hospital for a few more days. “We will hand over the baby to an orphanage through child helpline officials when he’s ready to go,” he said.

Geetha, an actor who has played supporting roles in television serials such as ‘Karthigai Pengal’ and ‘Namma Kudumbam’, lives with her daughter Shalini in SVS Nagar.