Police say a newborn baby has survived five days down a sewer drain in Sydney, Australia, only to be rescued when passers-by happened to hear the boy screaming.
Cyclists made the discovery early Sunday morning in the Sydney suburb of Quakers Hill, after initially believing they could hear a kitten screaming.
David Otte told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation he and his daughter were shocked to discover the infant.
"No-one in their right mind would ever come across something like this," Otte said.
The baby was some eight feet down the sewer drain, but the concrete lid was too heavy for Otte and his daughter to lift.
MT @DamienSmith_7 The narrow opening through which #quakershill abandoned was pushed. It's 2.4m to the bottom
"We couldn't get it off. We couldn't get it off, we had to wait to help the police," he told the ABC.
These were the first police on the scene & helped rescue a newborn baby from Quakers Hill drain. Incredible job.
The baby was rescued and taken to a children's hospital, where he remains in a stable condition. Police said they believe the infant was born on Monday and somehow dumped into the sewer on Tuesday. He was wrapped in what appeared to be a hospital blanket.
It took six men to lift the 200kg slab covering the drain this baby was found in this morning http://t.co/O5c3DY249C
Police said they conducted "extensive inquiries, including hospital record checks and door knocks, in an attempt to locate the child’s mother."
A 30-year-old woman has since been arrested and charged with attempted murder.
Police are unclear as to how the baby survived for so long without food or water, but they say it would have been unlikely for the boy to survive another day down the drain, especially given the heat in Sydney on Sunday, where temperatures soared above 100 degrees Fahrenheit.