NYC doorman helps rescue abandoned newborn baby in Chelsea, mother arrested
By Jesse Zanger, John Dias
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NEW YORK (WCBS) — A New York City doorman helped rescue an abandoned newborn baby he found on the street early Thursday morning.
Police later arrested the child’s mother, Ayatta Swann, 37, who lives at the Latham Hotel shelter at 4 East 28th St. in Manhattan, and charged her with abandonment of a child.
It all unfolded just after 3 a.m. at a building on West 23rd Street near 10th Avenue in Chelsea, under the High Line.
The doorman of a high-end apartment building heard cries coming from outside. He went to check it out, and discovered the child on the street. The baby still had his umbilical cord attached when he was found, naked and alone, wrapped in a blanket on the sidewalk. Police say the child was conscious and alert.
The doorman then rushed to an EMT station across the street for help. They assisted right away, rushing the baby to Bellevue Hospital. He is in good condition.
A man who works in the area said he spoke with the doorman shortly after it all happened.
“He told me, when he came out, he saw a clump of something on the floor, and heard the baby crying,” Cedric Fraser said. “Young kid. He said, ‘Oh my God, I never seen something like this before.'”
FDNY officials spoke about the incident during an afternoon news conference. EMT Mia Chin said a man approached her ambulance and knocked on the window at 3:09 a.m. and told her and her partner, Patrick Feimer, about the abandoned newborn.
“We just fell back on our training. We relied on what the fire department has taught us time and time again, and we immediately brought the infant to our desk lieutenant and waited for medics to transport the child to Bellevue,” said Chin, who works out of EMS Station 7 and has been on the job for about a year. “It was fresh. It was a fresh delivery, so it probably happened moments before.
“When I approached the infant it was crying and cooing and waving, and I was just so happy that the child was alive, was well, didn’t have any obvious injuries,” Chin added.
Feimer added, “Getting a knock on the window like that, you don’t know what you’re going to walk into, so we just ran over and tried to assess the situation and when we saw [the newborn], that’s when you kind of snap into action.”
Though both EMTs said they were just doing their jobs, FDNY Commissioner Laura Kavanagh praised their efforts.
“Are they heroes? Of course,” Kavanagh said.
New York’s Abandoned Infant Protection Act States have enacted safe haven laws that allow parents to abandon children at safe locations such as hospitals or staffed police or fire stations without fearing criminal charges. New York state’s Abandoned Infant Protection Act allows a parent to abandon a newborn baby up to 30 days old anonymously if done safely.
“We are very lucky that that doorman was able to alert them and that they were there so we could intervene right away,” Kavanagh said. “You can bring [newborns] to the station or the firehouse or police precinct and knock on the door and not be asked any additional questions.”
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