Newborn Baby Found Alive Abandoned in Apartment Dumpster, Glad It Wasn’t Trash Day

State   |   Sarah Zagorski   |   Apr 10, 2015   |   12:40PM   |   South Carolina

In South Carolina, two teenager brothers found a newborn baby girl abandoned and left to die in the trash at their apartment complex. Austin Detray was walking with his younger brother when they heard a small noise coming from a nearby dumpster.

Austin said, “I heard it and I instantly knew it was a baby and she was crying, so I jumped in the garbage can, or the dumpster, and I started moving bags away. I got two or three bags down and saw the baby’s face pressed against the bag. I heard it and I instantly knew it was a baby and she was crying.”

Then Austin told his younger brother to run upstairs to get his mother for help because the girl was still alive and suffocating. His mother, Jessica Detray, told Fox8 News, “So…what I did was….got towels and took care of her. I named her. I named her Hope. Because I have hope for her and I pray, and if anything comes from this I want to make sure she is okay.”

Jessica was able to remove the umbilical cord from around the child’s neck and clear her mouth and nasal passage ways to get her breathing again. Thankfully, the baby is in stable condition at a local hospital and weighed in at 8 pounds, 6 ounces.

On April 9th, Jessica and her family visited the girl and are even considering adopting her. The woman responsible for abandoning the child turned herself in after she saw photos of herself on television. Lt. Denis with the Horry County Police Department said, “We wish to thank the media for their expedient dissemination of this information, which was key to its successful resolution.”

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Most states provide a Safe Haven relinquishing of newborns. Locations that are considered safe are police stations, hospitals, firehouses and rescue squads. These statutes were designed to protect innocent infants from abandonment while simultaneously protecting the lives of their mothers. Unfortunately, many babies are still unsafely abandoned because women do not realize they have another option.

As LifeNews previously reported, the first safe-haven law was enacted in Texas in 1999 and now all 50 states in the U.S., as well as the District of Columbia, have passed safe-haven legislation. According to the National Safe Haven Alliance, these laws have saved over 1,000 infants in the past decade.

Because of her quick action, the baby left alive in the arms of emergency responders. Jessica Detray said many of them were holding back tears when they rescued the small newborn.

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Jessica and her family were able to visit with the baby girl on Thursday afternoon at the hospital. She is willing to take care of the baby herself, even considering adoption.

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