Heavily pregnant Rinku Rai was travelling on the Tata-Chapra Express through eastern India when she unexpectedly went into labour in the toilet.
The 30-year-old gave birth over the lavatory, and if that wasn’t distressful enough, the baby then fell through the toilet chute, along with the placenta and umbilical cord, and out onto the train tracks.
Rinku leapt off the train to save her newborn on the tracks. The train stopped after her husband alerted the driver. Passengers then found mum and baby sitting on the side of the tracks, safe and unharmed.
The new mum was taken to the next stop in Purulia, where she was admitted to hospital. After her dramatic experience, Rinku shared her ordeal. “The baby came out, cord, placenta and all. Before I could realise what had happened, it slipped through the hole. I became hysterical, came out of the toilet and jumped from the train,” she told The Independent.
Rinku’s brave newborn son survived his dramatic entrance without a scratch and is yet to be named. He joins the Rai family’s four-year-old daughter.
This isn’t the first time a baby was born on a train in India. Last year a newborn girl survived a similar fall from a train in Gujarat. Her parents later named her Radha, which means ‘Success’.
