On Tuesday, a woman walking their dog in Seymour, Indiana made a startling discovery. She found a baby in a plastic bag on the side of the road.
Shortly before 4 p.m. the Seymour Police Department received a call about a baby in a plastic bag. The child, who was later determined to be alive, was discovered alongside a fence about 20 yards away from the road.
The baby girl was found about one mile away from a Safe Haven Baby Box.
“She saw some movement in the bag, picked the bag up, opened it, and found an infant child inside the bag,” CJ Foster with the Seymour police said.
The child, whose age is unknown, was taken to Schneck Medical Center for an examination and initial reports said the baby girl is healthy.
The incident is under investigation.
According to police, around the same time the woman reported finding the child in a plastic bag, a man reported the abandonment of a child. Police intend to interview him.
Safe Haven Baby Boxes, an organization that gives mothers a chance to safely surrender her baby under the Safe Haven Law, shared that this marks the first time in four years that a baby has been abandoned.
“In 2019 so far we’ve had 7 safe haven surrenders where women surrendered their newborns safely and legally. But I am sad to announce that this is our first abandonment in almost 4 years in Indiana,” the organization shared on Facebook.
The first baby box was installed in Indiana in 2016, a time when, on average, two babies were abandoned illegally each year.
While I do not know the circumstances that led this mother to abandoned her baby, I can only hope that both she and her child get the help they deserve.
Share this if you want to see the same.
