A 30-year-old woman has been charged with attempted murder after her newborn son was found abandoned inside a drain near a Sydney motorway.
It is understood that the infant had spent five days at the bottom of an 8.2ft deep storm drain. He was found by pure chance by two passing cyclists who heard the baby crying. They managed to lift a heavy concrete slab up and then called emergency services. The baby was undernourished and dehydrated, and remains in a serious condition in hospital.
Police believe that the newborn wouldn’t have survived much longer, as temperatures in Sydney were expected to hit 40C on Sunday, just hours after he was found.