A resident points to the area at an abadoned animal hospital off Spanish Town Road, west Kingston, where an abandoned two-year-old girl was found. - photos by Norman Grindley/acting Photography editor

Residents of Denham Town and surrounding communities are describing as a major miracle the revelation that an abandoned two-year-old child survived for four days without food and water.

Medical authorities say it is not unusual for an abandoned child to survive for this period, but the residents are not convinced and they believe the child was under the special protection of a divine force.

The residents also believe that the circumstances under which the child was found were also part of a miracle.

"A God saved her," one resident declared when The Gleaner visited the community yesterday.

The child was abandoned by her mother in an old animal shelter off Spanish Town Road in west Kingston last week Monday and was not found until late Friday eveningafter a woman passing the premises heard her cries.

"Me hear crying like a baby. Three times me hear, 'Mommy, Mommy, Mommy', and me go home and tell me husband and him seh a duppy," the woman, who gave her name only as Stephanie, told The Gleaner yesterday.

Her husband returned to the scene with her and they heard one cry of 'Mommy' from inside the abandoned premises, but he was not convinced that it was not an evil sprit trying to lure them into the building.

"Me tell her say a duppy and she alone not to go in there, but she insist and she go tell a DC (district constable) who live nearby," Stephanie's husband said.

The district constable called the fire service and, after a lengthy search, the firefighters and residents found the two-year-old tied by the hands underneath a tree in a dark section of the premises which once housed kennels.

The other side

The residents noted that if the child had been abandoned on the other side of the premises, near the Boys' Town football field, no one would have heard the cries.

"Some fat hogs used to over there and if them did still there, them woulda eat the baby," Stephanie said.

"All some bad dogs over deh and it's a miracle that them nuh eat the baby," she added.

But, even as the residents celebrate what they claim was a miracle for the child to be found alive, chief medical officer in the Ministry of Health, Dr Sheila Campbell-Forrester, told The Gleaner that a child could survive for four days without food and water. She noted, however, that the child would be very hungry and dehydrated.

Additionally, Campbell-Forrester pointed out that the child would be severely traumatised.

The baby was still in hospital in serious condition up to late yesterday.

The area in the old animal shelter along Spanish Town Road where the abandoned child was found. - Norman Grindley/acting Photography editor