A police officer yesterday rescued a newborn baby from being drowned by her mother.
The policeman was forced to break into the house at Rosignol, West Bank Berbice after he heard the woman shouting that she would kill her two children.
Police were summoned by neighbours who noticed the threatening actions of the woman, who was eventually admitted as a patient at the National Psychiatric Hospital.
It is suspected that she is suffering from post-partum depression. The woman chopped the policeman with a cutlass during the altercation and attacked at least one other.
The policeman broke in just in time to see the woman trying to drown her three-week-old baby girl in a tub of water.
As the officer struggled to take the baby away, the child sustained a scratch to her face. The woman’s one-year-old son was standing nearby.
After the policeman’s intervention, the woman picked up a cutlass and chopped the officer’s hand. After he managed to wrest the cutlass away, she ripped his shirt and bit him on his chest. He was barely able to open the door so his female colleague could enter.
As the female officer was trying to restrain the woman, a scuffle ensued between them.
Other police officers were eventually able to enter and subdue the woman. They took her first to the Fort Wellington Hospital and then to the psychiatric hospital.
The children are in the custody of the Child Care & Protection Agency (CCPA).
Neighbours told this newspaper that the woman first started to abuse her husband because he told her that he was going out to look after some business.
They said she went out into the yard and tried to prevent him from leaving and was shouting at the top of her voice.
They recalled that she was wrapped only in a towel, which fell off a few times, totally exposing her nude body.
The woman also had a hammer in her hand and, afraid that she would injure the man, neighbours called the police. The woman later ran back in the house and locked the door when she saw the police.
A neighbour told Stabroek News that after he heard the commotion in the house, he went to the assistance of the police. The neighbour recalled the woman was shouting that her husband had taken away her phone.
He said she had also run her husband with a cutlass two days ago. Residents commended the police officer for courageously preventing the mother from hurting her two children.
The couple only moved to the area last Tuesday.
