Awesome Or Off-Putting: Baby Rescued From Drowning In Floating Plastic Bag
February 13th, 2006 at 15:30 by Shawn Lindseth
Awesome Or Off-Putting is a weekly delve into cryptozoology, ufology, medical marvels, scientific wonders, strange facts or weird goings-on.
This week: Weird goings-on.
In the past several years, seriously endangering your child has been on a highly publicised hot-streak. You’ve got Michael Jackson dangling his kid over a balcony, and Steve Irwin (The Crocodile Hunter) feeding alligators with one hand and holding his month old baby with the other. More recently you have Britney Spears pushing the petal to the metal with her infant on her lap, risking an explosive crushing between an un-deployed air bag and a couple pints of whole milk.
Bad as all that is, this next mother makes those celebrity parenting skills look like that of a high priced nanny.
A two month old baby girl was found alive floating in the Pampulha
Lagoon in Brazil (Books), she’d been stuffed in a plastic bag, and left to
suffocate or drown. A TV crew happened to be in the area, and
described what they heard like this:
"I heard what sounded like a cat,
then the noise was increasing and it caught my attention."
Two men used a long stick to get the bag to shore, they opened it
expecting to find an animal, instead what they found was the little
girl. The bag was kept afloat due to a small piece of wood that was in
or on it. The whole thing was caught on video tape. The child was
immediately taken to the hospital, where Dr. Claudia Guimaraes said:
"She is in good condition, it’s a miracle she survived the heat and somehow didn’t drown."
Police found the mother of the child, and charged her with attempted
homicide. She had a defence though, that being that she didn’t put the
baby in the water - no, she’d never do that. Instead she gave her to a group of homeless people, as she didn’t have the money to support the child.
She was inferring, of course, that one of those dastardly vagabonds
that promised to take extra special care of the girl went back on their
word and tossed her in the muck. This isn’t the case, though, as
witnesses saw the mother put the bag into the water moments before the
baby was found.
On the up and up, there have been tons of phone calls from
Brazilians hoping to adopt the baby. So many in fact that the hospital
where she is being temporarily housed has been described as "mobbed."
So the little girl whose mother wanted so desperately to be rid of her
will likely have a good and safe family life after all. A happy ending
for a sad, sad story.
It’s more than fantastic that the girl is OK, of course, but the actions of the mother lob this story way into the realm of Off-Putting.
Read more:
Baby found floating in bag in lake - CNN
[story by Shawn Lindseth]
Related and recent:
- Awesome Or Off-Putting: The American Man-Bat
- ‘Being Single Is Awesome’ Lies Britney Spears
- Awesome Or Off-Putting: Video Of Frankenstein-ish Two Headed Dog
- Awesome Or Off-Putting: East Indian Baby Worshipped
- Awesome Or Off-Putting: Revealing NASA UFO Hacker Video
- Awesome Or Off-Putting: Kinkaid’s Ancient Egyptian Grand Canyon Cave
- Jessica Alba Loves Being Riddled With Unborn Babies
- Awesome Or Off-Putting: Actual Recording Of Astronaut UFO Encounter
February 13th, 2006 at 11:47 pm
OUTRAGEOUS…
Thank you for reporting on child abuse. Anytime we can raise the awareness level we must. Please continue to be the voice for these helpless children. When we report abuse to the community, we establish a “relationship” with these children and because we know about it, it then becomes our responsibility and obligation to keep the story alive so that the suspects do not fall through the cracks. Justice must be served. As a retired Crime Analyst with over 20 years in law enforcement and a mother of 3 adopted children who were severely sexually, physically and emotionally abused, I have tracked hundreds of cases of child abuse and offenders do precious little time for their abuse of children. A family Unit does not burn, beat, scald, starve, sexually molest, break bones or “marinate” their unborn child with drugs while they are pregnant….. Please let the public know what is happening to our children - Experts say that at one point in their lives, they will all suffer from some sort of post traumatic stress because of the abuse from caregivers - if they survive.
The facts speak for themselves.
3,244,000 - Children abused in the United States each year.
1,330,711 - Is the approximate population of Sacramento County
17,317 - Is the seating capacity for the ARCO arena.
1, 401- children are killed nationally each year by their caregivers, but we don’t
know about it because the cause of death, though a result of abuse, is listed
otherwise, consequently, we are losing these child abuse statistics. (broken
ribs=pneumonia=death)
Just Look at the Facts
The number of children abused each year in this nation would populate the County of Sacramento 3 times.
You would have to fill the ARCO Arena approximately 180 times to accommodate the number of children abused each year.
Virtually all 288 (child molest) suspects are fathers, boyfriends, uncles, brothers in the victim’s household (my statistics showed approximately 90-93 %.) Over and over again, professional’s state that molesters are manipulators and instill fear in the child from telling anyone…”if you love me, you won’t tell…”
Would you give an arsonist a match? Would you give a pedophile your child to baby-sit? Then why, in God’s name, would you give a helpless child who cannot speak for themselves, back to a sex offender?
The legacy our public officials leave may be that they have put child abusers above the welfare of children and that housing criminals and protecting children is not a priority. Did we, the citizens, vote them into office to do just that?
Child abuse is the number one killer of children in various age groups. Check out the stats. Millions of children are abused each year. Thousands are hospitalized because of abuse. Hundreds are killed because of abuse. Those children who survive will suffer the emotional trauma for a lifetime.
Social services will tell you they cannot discuss individual cases because of confidentiality, and, besides, they are overworked. Police will tell you the same, but they are understaffed or devote their resources to more horrific crimes.
Besides, the source of the continuance of child abuse is hidden within Title 42 of the United States Code, Chapter 5106 which permits the re-unification of abused children with their abusers even if the abuser has committed murder. Title 42 further ensures that the names of abusers will not be made public because of a confidentiality clause.
The Press has often led the way in uncovering governmental inaptitude and apathy. Somehow we each contribute to the larger fabric of Society. Your contribution is in exposing what some would prefer not be known.
I encourage you to look into child abuse and sex offenders and how it is handled on the state and local level. Thank you. Jane Alvarez http://www.janealvarez.com