A MOTHER who 'kidnapped' her four-year-old son from Málaga hospital when he was waiting for a lung transplant has been arrested at the high-speed AVE rail station in Cuenca (Castilla-La Mancha), en route to Valencia.
At the time of his mother's arrest, the child was described as 'blue in the face' and struggling to breathe, and needed immediate medical assistance on site.
He was rushed to A&E in the paediatric wing of Cuenca hospital, and later transferred to a children's ward back in Málaga, where he had been taken from.
His mother, a Moroccan national aged 22, was under an arrest warrant as authorities sought to make her son a ward of court after she fled the hospital with him.
She had been told that if he was not in constant treatment, he would only live another few hours, meaning finding her and the boy was a race against time to save his life.
Málaga hospital security guards told police as soon as the woman escaped with her son in her arms, and guards at the railway station reported her the second they saw her arrive.
They had seen her get on the Córdoba-Valencia AVE train at the stop in Málaga and, as this line involves changing trains in Cuenca, police arranged for a team of officers and a mobile intensive care unit to be waiting at Cuenca station (pictured).
Excellent coordination meant police were able to detect which carriage the mother and son were travelling in and be ready at its door as it pulled into Cuenca station.
Authorities are now looking into the child's family situation in case it leads to the extreme where the child may have to be taken into care to prevent his mother removing him from hospital again.
Other than revealing that the little boy 'has very serious health problems' and 'needs a lung transplant', medical staff have not given details of the child's condition, nor is it known why the mother was apparently opposed to the transplant being carried out.
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