The delayed garbage collection saved an abandoned newborn in the western Greek city of Kalamata from death. "The baby was lucky," Kalamata's mayor Thanassis Vassilopoulos told Alpha TV.
A woman noticed the child, who was only a few days old, on Wednesday in a garbage chute several meters long and, according to her own information, prevented residents from throwing more garbage into it. Vassilopoulos said that the garbage truck was late in the quarter that day.
"The baby had been put in a paper bag," a local resident told Newsit. "I screamed and nobody stopped to help," said Vassiliki Tsoni. "If I had gone to call the police, more garbage would have covered the baby." For half an hour both she and the baby would have screamed. "I'm not a mother, but it really hurts."
The baby was finally freed from the trash and taken to a hospital with difficulty breathing, according to Alpha TV. It will probably recover completely, it said. Mayor Vassilopoulos made it clear how dangerous the situation from which the child was rescued was: "The garbage trucks not only take the garbage with them, they press it."
Shortly after the incident, the police said they had arrested a young woman in connection with the finding of the infant. It is not yet known exactly why the child was thrown into the shaft.