Doctors find pulse after baby girl is 'drowned' in Thames

A baby who was pronounced dead after falling into the Thames was being treated in hospital last night after medics detected a faint heartbeat.

The girl, thought to be about 18 months old, is in a critical condition after falling into the river near Goring in Oxfordshire yesterday morning. The baby's mother and sibling, who were on the river bank when she fell in, were also taken to hospital.

Police said a man in a boat saw the baby in the water and jumped in to help the mother save her. The bank was cordoned off yesterday as police officers, including divers, investigated.

Sergeant Graham Pink, of Thames Valley Police, said: "The child was pronounced dead at the John Radcliffe Hospital, before a very faint heartbeat was discovered. The child remains in a critical condition. The initial report was that the child had died. We put a statement out saying the child was dead and we would not have done that unless we had been told she was dead."

A spokeswoman for the South Central Ambulance Service said: "We were called to a report of a possible drowning ... When we arrived, the toddler was out of the water. She was unconscious and not breathing. We did not declare her dead."

She said the toddler was treated near Goring Lock and then airlifted to hospital. She added that resuscitation efforts continued on the journey to hospital and that a woman and another child were taken to hospital by land ambulance, but did not require medical treatment.

A spokeswoman for the Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals NHS Trust said she "could not comment" on police suggestions that medics from the trust had at first declared the girl dead.

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