Baby plucked from sea in ‘miracle’ rescue

WELLINGTON: A New Zealand baby was plucked from the ocean as he floated past a fisherman in a rescue hailed as “miraculous” by water safety experts, who warned the accident could easily have ended in tragedy.

Gus Hutt was preparing for an early morning of fishing when he saw what looked like a doll bobbing past in a rip current at Matata Beach in the North Island’s Bay of Plenty.

“I thought he was just a doll,” Hutt told the Whakatane Beacon of the Oct 26 incident.

“So I reached out and grabbed him by the arm, even then I still thought it was just a doll.

“His face looked just like porcelain, with his short hair wetted down, but then he let out a little squeak and I thought ‘oh God this is a baby and it’s alive’,” he said.

It turned out the “doll” was 18month-old Malachi Reeve ( pix), who had opened the zip of his sleeping parents’ tent, then made his way out of a beachside campsite and into the water, where a current caught him.

Hutt said he had altered his usual routine slightly and was about to cast off about 100m from his normal spot on the shoreline when the object floated by.

“He was floating at a steady pace with a rip in the water.

“If I hadn’t been there, or if I had just been a minute later I wouldn’t have seen him,” the fisherman said.

“He was lucky, but he just wasn’t meant to go. “It wasn’t his time.” Malachi’s parents were alerted and rushed to the camp reception, where mother Jessica Whyte found her boy “purple, cold and looking smaller than usual”.

But after treatment from paramedics he was given the all clear and Whyte said he was unaffected by his ordeal.

She said Malachi had been fascinated by the sea the day before and must have woken up early to explore. – AFP