WATCH: How the #NewlandsEastBabyRescue unfolded

Her dramatic rescue played out in Newlands East, north of Durban, yesterday morning after local resident Iyron Lovedale found the infant. 

He was walking along Barracuda Road - just after 6am - when he heard what he thought at the time was a cat crying.

A father himself though, Lovedale thought it best to check and so he lifted the manhole cover up and slipped himself into the narrow crawl space.

“I went to the bottom and I looked and saw it was a newborn baby. At first, I actually thought it was a baby boy because that is what it looked like but now I know she is a baby girl,” he says.

The authorities were notified and within minutes, emergency workers from across the city - including officers from both the eThekwini Metro Police and SAPS Search and Rescue Units, firefighters and paramedics - had descended on the scene.

GALLERY: Newlands baby found in storm drain recovering

The baby was located more than seven-metres deep in the pipe and a complex rescue operation ensued.

This involved carefully digging away several square metres of earth in order to expose the pipe, getting as close as possible to where the infant was, cutting the pipe open and then pulling her out.

The local community also rallied together to help and residents were out in their numbers.

Some of them went as far as pulling their kitchen cupboard doors from their hinges for use as shoring - so as to prevent a collapse - at the dig site.

Asked about this response, one woman said, “We all live in different parts of the area but we are all here. We just wanted to make sure she was alive and safe. That was all that was important”.

Miraculously, she was alive and safe.

After almost three hours of tireless work - and to thunderous applause from the crowd that had gathered - a local firefighter pulled the baby out of the pipe and handed her over to a paramedic.

She was rushed to a helicopter that was waiting for her at a nearby school and airlifted to Inkosi Albert Luthuli Central Hospital.

There she was examined by doctors from the trauma and pediatric units and - incredibly - found only to be suffering from mild hypothermia.

The Chief Specialist for Trauma at Inkosi Albert Luthuli Central Hospital, Dr Tim Hardcastle, has called her “a miracle”.

“I think any child who survives x amount of hours - and it sounds like it was at least five hours - in a stormwater pipe, on day two or three after birth, is a miracle. I think it is mercy from above that she is as stable as she is,” he says.

The infant - whom KZN’s MEC for Health has named ‘Gabriella’ - is recovering well and will be transferred to another facility in due course. 

In the meantime, police have opened a case of attempted murder.

Police spokesperson, Colonel Thembeka Mbele says that no arrests have been made.

Back in Newlands East, an overjoyed Lovedale - who remained at the scene until the baby was rescued - was still smiling.

“I’m just happy that the baby’s out, that she’s been rescued and someone who is looking for a child, will maybe take her,” he said.