For most parents, welcoming a baby into the world is a long-awaited celebration.
This father evidently didn’t feel the same way when he made the cruel decision to throw his daughter off a cliff.
A baby who had been born for just six hours was peacefully resting in the Magui Health Centre, a Guangdong hospital in south China, back in October 2018.
Her father, who goes by the surname Li, wanted a son instead, so he stole her away, placing her into a nylon bag and sneaking out to a nearby forest.
He tossed her out over a cliff and left her for dead in the woods.
The hospital soon called in police, reporting the loss of a newborn from their facility.
Magui police began their investigation, and soon they started to see evidence pointing towards Li’s guilt.
They questioned him and pressed him for answers until he finally admitted to dumping his baby daughter off a rural cliff – all because he had hoped for a son.
Officers hurried to the scene, believing all hope may be lost.
Rescuers sprung to work, slowly climbing down the very steep cliff area in order to look for the young girl.
At the time, they still believed she was long dead.
But then they heard something that shocked them: the distant crying noises of a baby, wailing for help.
By some miracle, the young newborn baby had managed to survive for a whopping 12 hours on her own, and the fall hadn’t killed her.
Instead, she’d landed among tree branches, which protected her fall and prevented deadly impact damage.
Rescuers hurried to track her down based on her cries, and they found that she was just about 100 feet beneath the cliff’s edge, caught upon multiple tree branches.
A doctor and nurse took a quick look at the poor girl, still within a nylon bag, once rescuers returned her to safe ground.
Thankfully, there were virtually no serious injuries on the poor girl, and she was rushed to the hospital for further treatment and safe care.
Once she was given the all-clear, she was returned to the care of her mother, and she is now safe, sound, and healthy.
Meanwhile, a video of the baby being looked over by doctors after her rescue has gone viral on Weibo, a micro-blogging platform that is popular in China.
Most readers are heavily critical and rightfully angry at Li, with many stating that this attempted murder indicates he is unfit for fatherhood and does not deserve to parent children.
Many also express their well-wishes for the daughter he attempted to discard, and some even joke that Li should have been the one to be thrown off that cliff!
As for Li’s motivations for cruelly dumping his child?
He has three other kids and was extremely upset that his newborn was a daughter, which made his total children total to three girls and one boy.
He added that financial pressure due to his family’s poorness also drove him to make the decision. He is now in police custody as an investigation continues.
