Homeless heroes behind abandoned baby’s rescue

Three homeless men from Montana have been praised for the rescue of an abandoned newborn this week.

The baby was found after it had allegedly been abandoned by his mother shortly after birth.

The men gave an account of what it was like the minute they found the child.

“When I opened the plastic bag [he was left in], I heard a baby’s cry,” Daniel Matemane told Rekord, adding that when he first saw the bag, he thought it contained clothes he could sell for some income.

“Out of shock, I walked away. Shortly afterwards I went back.”

Matemane said he opened the plastic bag to find the little one inside.

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“We found the baby lying on his stomach and it was upon turning him around that we saw he was a new-born. He was still covered in blood and afterbirth.

“When I went back and saw that it was indeed a baby, I ran to the petrol station to ask someone to call the police,” he said.

Sylvester Mmakala, who was with Matemane and the third man known only as “Gray”, then recalled seeing a suspicious-looking woman walking in the opposite direction as they were walking to the Engen Montana Crossing convenience centre.

While Gray remained at the garage with the new-born baby boy, Mmakala and Matemane ran in the direction they saw the woman walking in.

“I suspected that this woman was up to something but couldn’t know for sure. Unfortunately, we lost her track,” Matemane said.

Meanwhile, at the garage, petrol attendant Tshifhiwa Nduma asked early morning customer Zelda du Plessis for assistance.

He said they waited for police and paramedics for more than an hour after they first reported the situation.

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Du Plessis offered her jacket to cover the baby as he was getting cold, while repeatedly contacting the police.

“When Nduma told me about the discovery of the baby and asked me to assist, I jumped out of my car immediately and tried to call the crisis centre and police,” she said.

Police spokesperson Warrant Officer Johan van Dyk said they were searching for the mother. A docket for abandoned baby has also been opened.

“We ask the community to assist us with any information regarding the mother of the baby so we can take further action and the wheels of justice be put in motion,” he said.

Co-founder of Rock of Hope, a place of safety for babies, Mientjie Prozesky said the little boy was adjusting well in his new home and loved all the attention he was getting.

“He’s drinking donor breast milk and already gained 150g. He is healthy and very loveable,” she said, adding he had already been taken to the clinic to get his umbilical cord bound and his first injections.

“Though he lost a lot of blood through the umbilical cord which not bound off, we are giving him iron supplements to build his immune system,” Prozesky said.

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