Police are searching for the mother of a newborn girl who was found in the middle of a rural California road, with her umbilical cord still attached, in near freezing temperatures.
According to ABC News, a newspaper delivery person found the baby early Monday lying “on the centre line of a roadway.”
Sheriff’s officials say a man walking around 4:30 a.m. Monday was approached by a woman in a white SUV who asked him to take her baby. He refused and suggested she take the newborn to a fire station or hospital.
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“He was approached by a female driving a white, smaller SUV. This female got out of her car, asked the man if he could help her and asked him to take her child,” Madera County Undersheriff Tyson Pogue told reporters Monday. “The man directed her to the fire station and the Valley Children’s Hospital down the street and suggested she take the baby there.”
The newspaper carrier found the child a short time later, and he wrapped the baby in a blanket before calling 911.
“It’s very fortunate that the child was discovered by the newspaper delivery person before she was seriously injured or even possibly killed,” Pogue said.
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The child was taken to hospital and is said to be in good health.
“Luckily, she was discovered early enough that she’ll make a full recovery,” Pogue. “We’d like to remind everyone that there are many safe surrender sites that will allow someone to surrender a newborn child without any questions asked.”