A garbage collector in Rio de Janeiro got the surprise of his life on Tuesday when he found a newborn baby, that he first took for a discarded doll, abandoned next to a dumpster.
A video of Samuel da Silva dos Santos holding the baby girl found in a box on a street strewn with trash went viral on social media, sparking a mixture of joy and indignation in the Brazilian seaside city.
The infant, whose bare legs are seen sticking out of a too-small pink blanket, makes no sound in the video but her mouth can be seen twitching.
“It’s very emotional because she is a warrior, isn’t she? She was born again,” Silva told AFP later through tears.
Although she did not react at first to being picked up, when Silva “took her in his arms, I think she felt more cuddled and a bit warmer. It was then that she began to open her eyes (…) it’s surreal,” Silva’s garbage truck partner Anderson Mendes Nunes added.
The pair found the baby in a box next to a dumpster in the north of the city, as they were nearing the end of their route in the middle of the night.
Rio police are trying to identify the child and to discover who abandoned her, local media reported.
The pair handed the little girl over to Rio’s health services, which later declared her to be in “stable” condition.
Silva said they were lucky they spotted the baby.
“We usually work quickly with shovels, tossing it (the garbage into the truck). It could have been worse,” he said.
A father of three, he says he wants to adopt the little girl.
“She needs someone who will give her love, who will give her care,” he said emotionally.
He said the incident brought back memories of a tragic find 18 years ago, when he discovered the body of a baby in the garbage.
Social media users were torn between sympathy for the situation of the absent mother and anger.
“I can’t imagine the desperation that led to this decision,” one person wrote on X.
“How can someone do that to their own daughter?” another wondered.
