CHICAGO (AP) — A newborn boy found Wednesday morning inside a drawer of an apparently discarded dresser in a Chicago alley is in good condition, authorities said.
Paramedics were called to Chicago’s Montclare neighborhood about 8 a.m. by a passerby who found the newborn in the dresser drawer, said Larry Langford, a spokesman for the Chicago Fire Department.
The child was taken to Lurie Children’s Hospital where he was listed in good condition, he said.
“It’s a good thing somebody came by. It’s hot out there, it could’ve ended differently, but it’s all seemingly worked out,” Langford told the Chicago Tribune.
Officials said trash pickup was underway Wednesday morning in the area where the infant was found. But it wasn’t clear if the dresser was close enough to the curb that it would have been hauled away by trash collection crews.
Karie James, a Chicago Police Department spokeswoman, said in an email that police were investigating.
Under Illinois’ “Safe Haven” law, enacted in 2001, a parent can safely relinquish an infant 30 days old or younger to a hospital, police station, fire station, or emergency medical facility and leave the infant with personnel of the facility without fear of legal repercussions.
Candy Pittner, who lives in the area where the newborn was found, told WLS-TV she’s out- raged someone would just leave an infant out with the trash when there are so many safe places a child can be dropped off.
“You could have even rang my doorbell, I would have taken the baby and left. Anything but leaving it in that drawer,“ Pittner said
