It might be difficult to imagine how a mother can abandon her newborn child, much worse leave the baby inside a gym bag. However, that was what exactly happened one night as a hospital housekeeping staff was making his rounds at a Family Medical Clinic in Chamblee, Georgia.
It was the most terrible thing to discover, but it was also a blessing that the hospital cleaner was thankful to be a part of.
Horace Thomas, 64 years old, was doing his regular cleaning rounds at the clinic when he heard a sound that he wasn’t exactly expecting to hear in the middle of the night. It was the sound of a baby crying!
He was fazed and was unsure if he was hearing correctly, so he tried to figure out where the cry was coming from. His search led him to a gym bag!
Horace could not believe his eyes. He was actually looking at a live newborn boy inside a blue canvas gym bag that’s been in the clinic for hours! As soon as he saw the baby, the elderly man did not waste any moment and dialed 911 and waited for help to come.
Soon after, Officer Beth Frye showed up at the scene, even before the ambulance came. She was definitely the perfect person for the situation as she already had experience delivering a child while she was on the field. She even saved a baby’s life back in 2013, when the said infant was born not breathing.
While waiting for the ambulance, Officer Frye immediately took the baby out of the gym bag and found that he was wrapped in a white T-shirt. His umbilical cord and placenta were still attached to the boy.
She brought the infant to the bathroom and took care of him until the ambulance arrived at the scene. The officer and the rescue team rushed the baby to the Scottish Rite Hospital so he can receive immediate treatment and proper nourishment. At the hospital, everyone called the infant a “miracle baby”!
As it turned out, the gym bag was left the day before, around 7:00 in the morning, near the entryway of the clinic. Thinking that someone might have accidentally left it behind, an employee brought the bag inside.
The employee, later on, told police that she walked outside and found a blue bag with black shorts and a white shirt inside. She brought the bag in the clinic and advised reception about it in case someone came back to get it. She also stated that she never heard any sound coming from the gym bag.
Nobody even suspected that a baby was inside that blue bag for the whole day because the infant did not make even a tiny sound.
It was only when Horace heard the baby crying after approximately 18 hours that they realized that a baby boy was actually inside the zipped bag. The infant was not born full-term and weighed only 4.68 pounds.
He was left without nourishment and attention for so long that seeing him alive after that amount of time is nothing short of a miracle. The hospital welcomed the boy with open arms and gave him the right care and nourishment he needed to fully recover.
In Georgia, mothers who would like to drop off any unwanted babies have up to seven days to hand in their infants to staff members of medical facilities, without repercussions. Since the boy’s unknown mother irresponsibly left her child without anyone to accept him, it was determined that she will likely face charges for what she’s done.
Children, as they say, are little bundles of joy. How a mother can leave her unborn child inside a zipped gym bag is simply beyond us. It is terrible and what if the hospital cleaning staff was not there to hear the infant’s cries? The terror is simply unimaginable.
It was certainly a huge blessing that Thompson was at the right place at the right moment. He was able to save an innocent little boy’s life and his presence made way for the child to have a shot at life.
The elderly man surely hopes that this is the last time he’ll ever encounter this kind of incident. Besides, no child ever deserves to be left the same way this little boy experienced.
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