Chicago newborn baby found in dresser drawer in Montclare alley. Infant boy abandoned as authorities seek to identify child’s mystery mother.
How did he end up in an alleyway? A newborn baby boy was discovered inside a drawer of a dresser left in an alley in Chicago‘s Montclare neighborhood Tuesday morning, authorities said.
The child was found just before 8:15 a.m. in the 2300 block of North Oak Park Avenue, police said.
The infant was in a dresser drawer that had been left in an alley, police said. It remained unclear how long the boy had been at the location prior to being found.
Miraculously the boy was found just hours before a garbage pickup truck was scheduled to come through ABC7 Chicago reported.
The newborn was taken to Lurie Children’s Hospital where his condition was not immediately known.
Prayers answered
A woman said she found the child while trying to recycle part of the dresser.
‘I put my finger on the little foot, too just to see he was moving,’ the woman, who asked not to be named, told NBC Chicago.
The un-named woman said she felt like her prayers were answered when she discovered the child.
‘I found him that is greatest thing,’ the woman said.
‘Every time I think about the little details, it just makes me mad,’ she added. ‘So I’m just gonna focus on the miracle that I was there, and that everybody showed up on time because I was shaking. I was shaking so bad.’
The incident led to local residents outraged that someone would just leave a baby out with the trash.
‘It’s very heartbreaking to hear something like that,’ resident Candy Pittner told ABC7 Chicago. ‘I don’t get it. I really don’t because you have so many other places, you could have dropped it at a hospital…firehouse, church. You could have even rang my doorbell I would have taken the baby and left. Anything but leaving it in that drawer.’
Illinois Safe Haven Law
In 2001, Illinois passed its Safe Haven Law, which allows parents up to 30 days to hand their newborns (and un-harmed) over into the arms of qualified police, fire, or medical personnel, with no questions asked.
Detectives are trying to identify the baby, whom they believe is less than a week old, the Chicago Police Department said in a Tuesday press release.
To date, the identity of the child’s mother remains unknown.
