WATCH: North Coast baby found in pit toilet survived four-hour ordeal
Left to die atop a pile of human waste, a baby girl has defied the monumental odds that were pitted against her just moments after she took her first breaths - and survived.
The newborn was on Thursday morning rescued from a pit latrine at a rural homestead in Mandeni - Zululand.
The infant's unyielding cries had pierced the still of the night in the surrounding farmlands and alerted locals to her plight.
They had contacted their local police who, in turn, had reached out to the team from Rural Metro Fire.
Station commander, Khulekani Thusi got the call just after 2am.
“They phoned me and I relayed the message to the controller and asked the team to go. At the time, we didn’t know exactly where we were going - We just had a rough idea”.
Shift leader, Khayelihle Dlamini and his team set out into the dark, along the treacherous road that winds through the area.
“When we arrived at the scene, the situation was tense… I took a torch, shone it down the pit and saw the baby,” he says.
Without skipping a beat, Dlamini resolved that he would have to dive into the pit and pull the baby out.
But the task at hand was not a simple one. The entrance to the pit was no bigger than a dinner plate and the firefighters had to first use the jaws of life to carefully pry away the concrete foundations - without causing a collapse and crushing the infant below.
Once they had dug out enough concrete, it was time for Dlamini to gear up.
“I managed to squeeze myself into the pit - carefully, so as not to fall in myself - and get the baby,” he says, “She was crying and I put her on a blanket”.
She was immediately rushed to a local clinic, in an IPSS Medical Rescue ambulance.
NOW READ: LISTEN: Baby rescued from pit toilet on north coast
The paramedic who treated her, Qiniso Nene, says when he first got the call that he expected the worst.
She had been there for at least four hours.
“But aside from being covered in faeces, she was fine. Her skin was pink, she was crying. Fortunately, she had fallen on her back and so she was facing up and she was able to breathe," he says.
He says the infant’s umbilical cord, however, had been cut very short and they wasted little time getting her to the clinic so that the nurses could attend to that.
Police spokesperson, Colonel Thulani Zwane says a 19-year-old woman has been arrested on charges of child neglect.
But spokesperson for the Department of Health in KZN, Ncumisa Mafunda, says the baby is recovering well.
“The Social Work Department is working together with the SAPS to ensure her placement,” she says.