Fisherman pulls 'porcelain doll' floating in the ocean — then hears a little squeak and realizes 'it's alive'
The shores and waters are a vast space, and you never know what you might find. An elderly man named Gus Hutt was on holiday at Matata Beach on the North Island, back in 2018, when he found something astonishing in the ocean, as reported by BBC News. Floating on the water’s surface was what he initially called a “porcelain doll.” Out of curiosity, he tried to hold the object and pull it out to get a better view. Right then, he was abruptly stopped by a sound coming from it. It immediately changed the trajectory of things. Hutt was fishing when he spotted something that looked like a porcelain doll floating in the water.
He reached out his hand to grab it, and it let out a “squeak,” per AP News. “Even then, I still thought it was just a doll,” Hutt told the local newspaper, the Whakatane Beacon. To his surprise, the object was not a doll but an 18-month-old boy, Malachi Reeve, who somehow reached the ocean. Initially, Hutt was confused. “His face looked just like porcelain with his short hair wetted down. But then he let out a little squeak and I thought, ‘Oh gosh, this is a baby and it’s alive,’” he recalled. Murphy’s Holiday Camp co-owner Rebecca Salter said that it was “miraculous and fateful” that the boy was found alive.
To add to the bizarre nature of the event, Hutt didn’t intend to fish at that spot. He thought the side was calmer and would be better to fish and ended up stumbling upon the boy. Salter was around with her husband when the incident happened and was fortunately able to intervene quickly. “My husband came around the corner with the baby in his arms. I ran into the house and grabbed a whole heap of towels and blankets so he would be warm. He was just whimpering the whole time,” she recounted. The boy was pale and cold, and it took the couple a few minutes before they could identify him or ask around about him.
The woman quickly used her skills to search for the boy’s parents and informed them of the terrifying situation. “They were horrified and in disbelief. They were woken up to find their baby wasn’t there. It was surreal to everyone involved,” she remarked. It was only later discovered that the boy had escaped from his tent, where his parents were and made his way through the sand and eventually into the waters. The boy’s footprints were visible on the shore, marking the path from the tent to the ocean.
He floated 15 meters before Hutt found him. “If I hadn’t been there or if I had just been a minute later, I wouldn’t have seen him,” Hutt mentioned. The man added, “He was bloody lucky, but he just wasn’t meant to go. It wasn’t his time.” The boy was taken for a quick checkup and was eventually fine. He even stopped by with his parents to thank Hutt. “He was wriggling, trying to get down to have a look at everything. He was just a lovely, cheeky little fella,” the man remarked.