Doctors released a 2-month-old girl from a hospital "in perfect health" Monday, January 30, two days after she was found in a black plastic bag floating in a lake in Belo Horizonte, capital of the state of Minas Gerais, in southeastern Brazil.
Scores of Brazilians mobbed the Odilon Behrens Municipal Hospital, offering to adopt or just catch a glimpse of the child whose dramatic rescue was filmed by an amateur cameraman and was broadcast Sunday on nationwide television.
Authorities said it was the same Belo Horizonte hospital where the infant was born, a fact that helped authorities locate the mother, who allegedly set her adrift on nearby Pampulha Lake.
The baby was released into the care of local child-protection authorities.
"She’s doing great, in perfect health," said Rosana Alves, a hospital spokeswoman. "Now the Juvenile Court will decide whether she goes to a family or to a shelter."
Alves said the commotion over the infant and the flood of adoption offers had interfered with hospital routine.
"There were too many to count," she said. "Thank God it’s over now."
Police arrested the baby’s mother, 27-year-old Simone Cassiano da Silva, on Sunday and charged her with attempted homicide for putting the baby into the plastic bag, setting it on a board and pushing it into the lake.
Pravda – www.pravda.ru