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A woman apparently gave birth on a San Francisco street overnight, leaving her child behind as police arrived to help her.
San Francisco police said they were called to a Bayview District street corner at 2 a.m. to do a welfare check on a woman who had arrived at the door of a homeless shelter and said she needed help. They said she was bleeding and told them she had just given birth.
When officers arrived they said they were flagged down by a man who was holding a newborn baby boy. He said the mother handed him the baby before she took off.
Initially the baby was unresponsive. One of the officers on the scene was a former paramedic and began CPR. The officers called for an ambulance but decided they could get the baby to the hospital faster, so they drove the infant in their police cruiser to San Francisco General Hospital.
Meanwhile, other officers searched and found the new mother nearby. She was also rushed to the hospital, according to police.
Both the baby and the mother are now at SF General and expected to survive.
The circumstances surrounding the birth were not immediately clear.
The officers who rushed the baby to the hospital are being called heroes. They both have been on the force for five years and work the midnight shift by choice, according to Lt. Robert O'Sullivan of the SFPD.
O'Sullivan said the two don't want to talk about what they did because they are upset thinking about their own children.
"If they are not heroes, I don't know who is," O'Sullivan added.
The case remains under investigation. Anyone with information is asked to call police Sgt. John Keane of the Police Department's special victims unit at (415) 553-9363.
Bay City News contributed to this report.
Leave a Comment:
If she doesn't want the baby, give it up for adoption. I'll take the baby.
They drove a baby to the hospital. This does not make them heroes. Had the baby been on fire, or contained a nuclear bomb with a short timer, THEN they would be heroes.
Jeez, tough crowd! Did you miss the part where it said the baby was not breathing and an officer did CPR?! Or the part where they then drove the baby themselves to the hospital because time might have been a factor in whether the infant lived or died?! The old cliche "Not my job" is used so much these days, but thankfully for one little soul, not by these officers! They are heroes in my book and did an 'Amazing' job!!
Stupid, misleading story. This is why women and girls who are pregnant and at risk DON'T go to safe houses, churches or hospitals to drop babies off!
The media and the police always say the mother abandoned the child, but the child was "rescued". RESCUED?The woman clearly went to the shelter to have the child- not for medical help (which is why she left with out medical help). She wanted a place to drop the child off. But they all know they will be prosecuted for something- no matter what they do or where they drop the child off.
[And the use of "welfare check" in the story is a convenient double entendre to inspre the usual trolling comments. Most writers just say the police were called to check on the welfare of a person. The article was too short to need the abbreviation to welfare check.]
Don't word, everybody, the woman will get the baby back and plenty of government ( read taxpayer ) money as a reward.
i agree nancy. oh she was abused or picked on or a drug addict. what ever so sick of it. welfare for the rest of the kids life.
Now hold on...I read the story to say the police arrived at the homeless shelter (the one the woman had entered telling the people she needed help and had just had a baby) When pulling up to the shelter they were flagged down by a man holding a baby...who said a woman had handed him the baby and...took off. Now it sounds like she basically had the baby really close to the shelter...right? (as in, perhaps she was trying to make it there for help when the baby came) They took her to the hospital, and she is still there, so she might have been hemmoraghing...as in bleeding out and too weak to carry the baby and make it in the shelter door. Of course the writer of this , or the man with the baby did say...took off...so, it must have been at a dead run to get away and callously abandon her baby with a stranger...journalist's are so accurate in there reporting nowdays. Why do I feel like if the birth of Jesus was reported some people would be dissing on Mary for not being better prepared and having her son in a manger, and the rest would be ready to have Joseph arrested for animal cruelty from the trauma the poor beasts must have suffered from having the birth in the stable? Merry Christmas