Paramedics Rush To Revive Unresponsive Newborn Found Abandoned on Top of Garbage Can
In nature, some newborn creatures can fend for themselves very, very quickly. For instance, baby ducks enjoy their first swim hours after birth and blue wildebeest calves typically walk within 30 minutes of entering the world.
Human babies find themselves landing on the opposite end of the spectrum. Our little ones take years of development before they even start to become self-sufficient (and some basement-dwelling video-game addicts never seem to manage it).
That’s why the abandonment of a helpless newborn is so awful, and why the story of first responders saving an abandoned baby in Chicago is so dramatic.
A mother and her daughter were walking through the alley of a Chicago neighborhood on May 7 when they found a shocking sight; they encountered a newborn baby left on top of a trash can, according to KALB-TV.
They bundled the infant, a baby boy, up in a blanket they found around him and rushed him to a nearby fire station.
Still, it almost wasn’t fast enough. When they got there, the child wasn’t breathing and was cool to the touch.
“The baby was cold as concrete,” Paramedic Field Chief Patrick Fitzmaurice said. “I wasn’t too optimistic, but like I said to the lieutenant, I wasn’t ready to lose this one today, and neither were they, and they worked very hard.”
The first responders put heating pads and blankets around the baby. Then they performed CPR and he rallied in an amazing recovery, flailing and crying.
Whatever the reason for the abandonment, it had obviously happened in dire circumstances. WGN-TV reported that the umbilical cord hadn’t even been clamped.
What’s more, the baby was bleeding. From what the firefighters and EMTs could tell, he was only a few hours old.
“I don’t know what it’s like to have a child, be pregnant, and be in some horrible circumstances where you are driven to do something like this,” Fitzmaurice said. “It almost sounds diabolical.”
“But come to us, call 911. We would’ve taken the baby to one hospital and her to another hospital. We won’t judge. Don’t leave your baby in an alley.”
However, this case might be part of a larger mystery. According to CBS News, 19-year-old Marlen Ochoa-Uriostegui recently disappeared from her area high school.
She was nine months pregnant when she vanished, and her due date was about the time the abandoned baby appeared. Her husband said that he’d last seen her on April 23.
WLS reported that the family wants a DNA test to determine paternity.
“If that baby is hers, it’s a sign she’s alive and is somewhere around here,” her mother said.
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