Missouri Medics Save Newborn Left in Trash
ST. CHARLES -- Standing in a trash Dumpster, paramedic Todd Ferring didn't expect to find a live baby. But inside two plastic trash bags Thursday he found an infant girl, born 10 weeks premature, with a strong pulse.
Ferring handed her to his partner, Matt Schafer, and the infant moved and moaned.
"When you first saw her, it almost made you drop to your knees," Schafer said. "I thought 'Oh my gosh, she's alive!'"
They carried the baby to the back of their ambulance and rubbed her chest. She made a high-pitched squeal, the medics said.
The rescuers had gotten a report about the baby through a nurse who had treated her mother. When the rescuers found her, the baby's extremities were blue, and her temperature was in the low 80s. But her face and the core of her body were a healthy pink, they said. The umbilical cord and placenta were still attached.
To allow Ferring and Schafer to continue to work on the baby, St. Charles Police Lt. Dave Simpson got behind the wheel of the ambulance and sped to St. Joseph Health Center.
The baby was transferred to Cardinal Glennon Children's Medical Center later in the day. Her condition was not being released, but police said earlier that she was critical. Her 22-year-old mother was questioned by police but had not been charged.
The mother admitted to police detectives Thursday afternoon that she had placed the baby in the bin, police said. But police had not determined why the woman did so and if she knew the baby was still alive.
St. Charles Police Chief Tim Swope said the mother lived with her boyfriend in Sun Valley Lake Apartments, which back up to where the baby was found, in a Dumpster on the El Maguey restaurant parking lot at 1151 Duchesne Drive.
Police said they believe the woman had the baby in the apartment. The mother was being treated at a north St. Louis County emergency health center.
Police were alerted to the situation about 10 a.m. by a nurse who treated the mother after the birth. Police did not know when the baby was born but speculated that she had been in the trash for several hours before she was found.
Swope said it was too early to say whether the mother would be charged. Police declined to say whether they were investigating the woman's boyfriend.
Swope said detectives would review security tapes from the restaurant for more information and were talking with the woman's relatives.
In the meantime, one of the baby's rescuers, paramedic Ferring, was feeling spent from his experience.
"I honestly don't know how I feel," he said, fighting back tears. "I'm very sad that someone would do something like that. I'm angry, but I'm also very happy that Matt and I were there to help this little girl."
sweich@post-dispatch.com e 636-255-7210
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