A newborn baby travelling home from hospital with his mother has survived a three-vehicle motorway crash that killed his mother and three other people in the mangled wreckage, as seen in this picture.
Rescue workers had already removed the bodies from the mangled wreck of the white car scene pinned under a huge timber lorry and said they had not even realised the baby was there when they suddenly heard it crying and found it lying on the floor.
The baby’s 23-year-old mother Fernanda Caroline Alves Ferreira and four other people died when two cars hit a huge timber lorry that was joining the MG-307 motorway in the municipality of Grao Mogol in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais on Sunday night.
One of the cars, the white car seen in the pictures that was travelling from the city of Botumirim in Minas Gerais, had five people including the newborn baby and the mother.
Two people were travelling in the other car. The driver of the second car died on the spot and a 30-year-old passenger was rescued with bruising and suspected fractures.
The local authorities also managed to save the baby in the first car.
Police spokesperson Layon Freitas Pereira said: “We arrived at the scene and found four victims in the car and we didn’t see the baby. We were only able to safely remove the passenger from the other vehicle.
“We were already happy about it when we were surprised. Colleagues heard the child crying and when we went back to check, we then found the baby on the floor of the vehicle. It had been missed under the bodies.
“He was well hidden and we managed to find him because of his crying. We really didn’t expect it and it was emotional for everyone to rescue this unharmed child. The two cars were destroyed yet we did not find any injuries in the newborn.”
The police said that the baby seat may have saved the tiny newborn’s life.
Layon Freitas Pereira said: “He was out of the baby seat when we found him, but the equipment probably helped to protect him a lot.”
The baby was taken to a hospital in Grao Mogol before being checked and transferred to another hospital the following morning.
The local authorities said the baby was being treated for hypoglycaemia but is otherwise in a stable condition with no need for surgery at the moment.
Botumirim health secretary Jessica Messias Oliva Carvalho told G1 that the mother was returning home from a hospital in the city of Montes Claros with her newborn baby when the accident took place.
Along with the mother, the other three victims have been named as driver Eliomar Celio Pereira dos Santos, 47, Sebastiao Pereira dos Santos, 50, and his 18-year-old daughter Samara de Jesus dos Santos.
The killed driver of the other vehicle has been named as Jose Alves de Souza, 59.
It is unclear if the lorry driver is under investigation for any wrongdoing in the fatal crash.
Meanwhile, the city of Botumirim has declared an official mourning period of three days in honour of the victims.
The investigation is ongoing.
