Chennai: Early on Independence Day, residents of SVS Nagar in Valasaravakkam were in for a big shock when they found a male infant inside a stormwater drain. The infant, barely a few hours old and with his umbilical cord tried around the neck perhaps with intent to choke, was rescued and admitted to hospital.
It was Geetha, 45, a former actor and now a homemaker, who saved the baby by quickly responding to the alert from her milkman and locating the infant from his cries coming from under the drain. Even as the shocked neighbours were discussing what next, she quickly freed the baby’s neck from the choking umbilical cord, gave him a wash and called the police.
The police first took the infant to a government hospital at Chinna Porur and later shifted him to the Egmore Children’s Hospital where he was placed in an incubator. “He is weak but will recover”, said a police officer.
Geetha and the others in the ‘rescue’ team have named the little lucky fellow ‘Suthanthiram’, since he was born on the Independence Day. “He will have a good and free life from now on because he was rescued from the jaws of death on this Independence Day. Had it rained this morning as much as it had last night, he would have been washed away in the filled up drain”, Geetha said.
Suthanthiram has beeb placed under he ‘Cradle Baby Scheme’. Geetha says she would love to have him.
