By David A. Patten From Newsmax

A 3-year-old infant clinging to her dead mother’s body was plucked from flood waters just seconds before being swept under a flooded trestle as the rains of Harvey pummeled Southeast Texas.

The toddler’s survival is being hailed on social media and the internet as a miracle.

Police in Beaumont, Texas say the mother’s instinct to protect her child “absolutely saved the child’s life.”

The name of the mother and child were being withheld Wednesday morning. The mother was declared dead shortly after being transferred to a local hospital. Her child is in stable condition and is expected to soon be released into the custody of family members.

According to police, the dramatic rescue began to unfold Tuesday afternoon at 3:37 p.m., after a report that a woman carrying a young female child were stuck in high water. Trapped in the deluge that dropped nearly 30 hours of water on the Beaumont-Port Arthur region, the woman pulled into a parking lot where her vehicle soon became trapped in the rising water.

“The vehicle got stuck and the mother exited the car with the child,” the Beaumont Police report stated. “At some point she was swept into the canal.”

Two police officers and two fire-rescue divers in a Zodiac responded and searched for the woman. They found them about a half mile from their vehicle floating in the flood waters, with the child clinging to the mother’s body. The current was pushing them toward a flooded trestle.

According to the police report: “The child was holding onto her mother. The first responders got to the mother and child just before they went under a trestle. Water was up to the trestle and first responders would not have been able to save the child if they had floated under it.”

Police spokeswoman Carol Riley told People magazine: “The baby was clinging to her. The mother did the best she could to keep her child up over the water.

“The baby also had a backpack that was helping her float on her back and she was holding onto her mom.”

Riley said the mother “absolutely” save her child.

After officers pulled the 3-year-old and her mother into the boat, a bystander rendered aid. The responders loaded the mother and daughter into the citizen’s truck, then rushed them to a waiting ambulance at Laurel and 23rd St.

They administered CPR on the way to the ambulance and the hospital, but the mother was unresponsive. She was declared deceased shortly after reaching the hospital.

“The child was responsive but suffering from hypothermia,” police reported.

Amidst the devastation of Harvey, which broke all records for a rainfall event in the continental United States, the 3-year-old child is being hailed as a miracle.

Writing on Faithit.com, Outreach.com editor Kelsey Straeter stated: “Praise the God of miracles who makes His mighty hand known in times of distress, assuring us that in this, He is sovereign still.”

Straeter asked for prayers for the woman’s family, and cited a passage from Isaiah 43:2.

It reads: “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you.”

IMAGE:(David J. Phillip/AP)

For more on this story go to; https://www.newsmax.com/Headline/miracle-baby-survived-hurricane-harvey-clinging/2017/08/30/id/810693/?ns_mail_uid=64942667&ns_mail_job=1750898_08302017&s=al&dkt_nbr=010501gtj0up