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06th Nov 2018

Fisherman rescues 18-month-old baby floating in the sea off coast of New Zealand

Alan Loughnane

New Zealand baby

This is something else…

A New Zealand fisherman has rescued an 18-month-old boy from the ocean, in an incident described as a “freakish miracle”.

Gus Hutt was preparing for an early morning fish when he saw what appeared to be a doll bobbing past him in a rip current at Matata Beach in the North Island’s Bay of Plenty.

He initially thought the child was a doll.

“It had a real porcelain face and all that sort of thing, eyes were closed and then all of a sudden it gave a little squeak and I thought ‘oh my God, it’s a baby’,” said Hutt.

18-month-old Malachi Reeve, had opened the zip of his sleeping parents’ tent, then made his way out of a beachside campsite and into the water, where he was caught by a current.

Usually, Hutt heads straight out from the camp to fish from the beach, but on Friday he decided to walk 100 metres to the left, towards Tauranga.

After returning to check his lines at 7.15am, he saw the baby floating in the water, according to the New Zealand Herald.

“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,” said Hutt.

“He was bloody lucky, but he just wasn’t meant to go; it wasn’t his time.”