Excerpts from jg-tc.com:
Chicago paramedics were called about 8 a.m. Wednesday to the 2300 block of North Oak Park Avenue by a person who located a newborn inside the drawer of a dresser. The child was taken to Lurie Children’s Hospital where he was listed in good condition.
There was trash pickup going on in the area Tuesday morning but it wasn’t clear whether the dresser was near enough to the curb that it would have been retrieved.
Under Illinois’ “Safe Haven” law, enacted in 2001, a parent can safely relinquish an infant 30 days old or younger to a hospital, police station, fire station, or emergency medical facility and to leave the infant with personnel of the facility without fear of legal repercussions.
If authorities determine the baby was endangered, however, it is possible the person who left the baby could face consequences such as arrest. Police did not say whether they were searching for the baby’s mother.
Excerpts from Chicago.cbslocal.com:
Chicago police are questioning a person of interest after a newborn was found abandoned in an alley Tuesday morning. One of the firefighters who rescued the infant said he does not want to think about how different this would have been if the baby hadn’t been called in.
It was hot and humid Tuesday morning, and the baby was found wrapped in blankets and a rosary in the bottom drawer of a dresser in an alley.
On the way to the scene Chicago Firefighter Matthew Lang was bracing for the worst. They went to work on the newborn they say could not have been more than a couple days old.
“Holding that little guy wrapped up in my arms, and I just kept thinking how familiar it was,” he said.
They parted ways when the baby was taken to Lurie Children’s Hospital, but Lang went home still thinking about those big brown eyes and penned an impassioned post, begging parents to find other alternatives. He wrote, in part, “If you have a baby you don’t want, please do not dispose of it into the garbage. Please take the baby to a hospital, firehouse, police station or church.”
His words have since been shared almost 10,000 times, and he said people all over the country have reached out offering to help.
The closest fire station is a three minute drive from where the baby was left, and there is a hospital across the street.
It’s a good reminder that those are some of the places parents can safely give up a newborn baby with no questions asked as long as the baby is not hurt and is less than a month old.
