What’s the most unusual thing you’ve found while walking your dog? Hopefully it’s nothing quite as shocking as what Cynthia Burton of Wilmington, North Carolina, discovered while walking through her neighborhood: a newborn baby in the trash.
Cynthia’s routine dog walk soon turned into a life-saving rescue mission when she found a baby in a sealed garbage bag after taking a different path on 16 July.
Speaking to WSPA 7News about her discovery, Cynthia recalled:
“I heard a cry, a loud cry, and then I kept hearing it.”
It’s likely that Cynthia will never forget what she found next. Heading to the trash cans behind a church, she discovered a baby boy, still bloody as if he had just been born, with the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck.
Without Cynthia’s discovery, there’s very little chance that this little boy would have survived. Cynthia said:
“He was in the trash bin at the bottom. He was in a trash bag and the ties were tied. I couldn’t open them. I had to rip the trash can apart.”
When she realized the urgency of her situation, Cynthia took action, running towards a nearby block of apartments and screaming for help.
A neighbor heard her and rushed to her side. The two of them cradled the baby while Cynthia removed the cord.
It must have been an incredibly intense time for Cynthia, who added:
“It’s pretty powerful. It changes your life. I know God put me in that place at that time.”
This little baby truly has a miracle story. He was left for dead, but divine intervention had given him another shot at life.
While the newborn boy might have been abandoned by his birth parents, Cynthia said that she loved him from the moment she held him in her arms. She added that the baby was clearly very powerful and strong, as he had been able to cry out, alerting Cynthia to his presence – and for that reason, today he lives.
Cynthia said:
“If I had walked by and not heard a sound, I would have kept on walking, but he cried, and he kept on crying, he kept on crying. He cried until I went and got the bag and pulled him up. When I opened the bag, he stopped crying. That’s when I believe that he knew that he was safe.”
The infant’s mother, Maryuri Estefany Calix-Macedo, has since made her first court appearance after being tracked down and charged with attempted first-degree murder. According to AZ Family, she is currently booked into jail with $800,000 bond.
North Carolina has a safe surrender law, which Calix-Macedo could have considered before choosing to act in desperation. The law allows a mother or father of a child of up to 7 days old to give it in to a social worker, health care provider or first responder for any reason. Safe surrender is completely legal, and was put in place to prevent baby abandonments like this.
As for the baby boy, police say he is doing well. He owes his life to Cynthia, who will undoubtedly feature heavily in his life as he grows up. His fate could have been very different, but instead, the first words ever spoken to him were Cynthia’s whispers of “Jesus loves you”.
The video below features an interview with Cynthia about her shocking discovery.
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