Shivering toddler found clinging to drowned mother amid Harvey

BEAUMONT, Texas — Authorities found a shivering toddler clinging to her drowned mother in a rain-swollen canal in Southeast Texas after the woman tried to carry the child to safety from Harvey's floods.

Capt. Brad Penisson of the fire-rescue department in Beaumont said a witness saw the woman trying to carry her 18-month-old daughter to safety Tuesday afternoon when the current of a flooded drainage canal swept them away. A police and fire-rescue team found the child alive, holding onto the floating woman.

According to WXIN, the child was holding onto the floating woman when a police and fire-rescue team in a boat caught up to them a half-mile downstream, he said. Rescuers pulled them into the boat just before they would have gone under a railroad trestle where the water was so high that the boat could not have followed.

First responders lifted the child from her mother’s body and tried to revive the woman, but she never regained consciousness.

Penisson said the child was in stable condition at a hospital.