Newborn Girl Found Wrapped In Plastic
A mail carrier found a newborn baby wrapped in plastic at an abandoned house Saturday.
COLUMBUS, Ohio—A mail carrier found a newborn baby wrapped in plastic at an abandoned house Saturday.
The baby girl was found on the front porch of the home on Marble Drive at about 10 a.m.
According to the U.S. Postal Service, the letter carrier, Michael Herron, was walking by the home, heard a noise and saw a plastic bag that was moving. Authorities said Herron saw the child, went to a neighboring home and called police and paramedics.
“I wish whoever this baby belonged to would have dropped it off at a hospital or to a fire department because the baby was in the direct sun and who knows how long she’d been there,“ Herron said.
Officials said the baby appeared to be several hours old. The baby’s umbilical cord and was reportedly in good shape, without complications.
Investigators with Franklin County Children Services said they are hoping that relatives will come forward and identify the infant’s mother.
The infant was taken to Children’s Hospital in stable condition.
Fire officials said the vacant home is less than half a mile from the a fire station, where the mother could have left the baby without question.
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Reader Reactions
You people are so stupid. How does this become a police bashing article. If you put a newborn in a plastic bag and leave it in an abandoned house, that is child endangerment. Even if your several feet away and “watch”, its still breaking the law. All you have to do is take the child to a safe house, and no legal action will be taken. Would you like your child to be put in a bag, or left alone? Stop acting like everyone is a victim, police enforce the laws, not make them up. Get off the police, and worry about your own useless lives. (that will be a lot worse in the near future). People make me sick!!!!!!!!
As a reminder to all in Ohio the Safe Haven Law (paraphrased below) provides an option for new mothers. I do not agree with the circumstances but please be responsible to do the right thing for your child.
What is Safe Havens for Newborns?
Not all women who get pregnant are ready to raise a child. Sometimes they see no options except to abandon the baby. Safe Havens provides a new option. It allows a birth parent to leave an infant (up to 30 days old) with:
Ħa medical worker in a hospital;
Ħa medical worker at a fire department or other emergency service organization; or
Ħa peace officer at a law enforcement agency.
If the infant is left with a person at one of these places, and has not been abused, the parent will face no legal consequences for making this choice.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts, Anonymous! You highlight many points that make one heartsick, and then the reality of what is the next best step. I agree wholeheartedly that if Law Enforcement is going to make a public statement about there being no arrests - then they need to stand with that. We have all been lied to. And those that believe the lie go on to encourage young scared women to come forward to give up their babies, then get arrested. Thank God for the mail delivery!!
What I have to say is terrible and extremely regretable… DebP…do you truly remember the last one that was found? When on the news, the police clearly promised that they did not want to arrest the mother, they just wanted to talk with her. They found the mother that same day, an 18 year old young woman. She was promptly taken into custody and charged with child endangerment. Turns out she had abandoned the baby, but was only a few hundred feet away watching and waiting for someone to find it! Once the person found the baby, she left the area. Now, not having bond money, she remains in jail even as this is being written. Am I siding with the mother - who obviously has problems? NO. BUT…I am also a bit more understanding about why a woman wouldn’t believe the @#%& about no questions asked, etc. She was lied to by the police when they promised on television not to make an arrest…and we, as the public, were lied to by the police. Why should a mother believe that any less would happen to her if she turned the baby in?
Yes, I am sickened by the mother’s actions, but I also blame our LEO. Had they come out originally and simply said “...We want to find the mother and lock her up to prevent her from doing something just as stupid again…I think someone would have turned her in almost instantly. Instead, they felt they had to lie…prompting other mothers to also do things the illegal way.
I am one of those (admittedly few) in favor of mothers selling their children. I would much prefer seeing a crackhead mother receive $10,000 in cash for her baby from someone who has that kind of money to raise a child than see the child being dragged from crack house to crack house while the dealers use and abuse both mother and child for years to come.
I think we would all agree that she should never have become pregnant in the first place, but once it becomes too late to beat that dead horse and something needs to be done for the child, I say LET the mother sell it!!!
(and yes, I know I’m going to take a beating for this post!!)
All I can say is that’s my true feelings. Maumi, where are you on this one??
What is wrong with women today? Don’t they know that they can take these babies to a fire station, police station or hospital with no consequences. There are couples that can’t have children and would adopt a baby in a heartbeat. This is the second new born found this summer. This really saddens me!
By that logic we should increase mail delivery to 7 days a week. And maybe deliver 2 times a day so they could catch things that happen at night.
Mail carriers aren’t the police, this is just a positive side effect.
Just a thought…if the USPS stops delivering mail on Saturday, which is what the USPS is trying to get Congress to allow, situations like this would result in a dead baby, not one in good condition.
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