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An abandoned newborn girl with her umbilical cord and placenta still attached has been discovered in the bushes outside a trailer park in Florida.
The baby, believed to have been born just an hour before she was dumped in the wooded area, was found by stunned neighbors in Mulberry after they investigated crying they initially believed to be from a cat.
Residents called police after making the chilling discovery around 2 a.m. Saturday. Polk County medical workers took the baby to a nearby hospital, where she was reported safe and well, according to the sheriff’s office.
“I was very surprised that they left a poor girl on the ground,” said Eulia Gregorio, 12, who found the abandoned girl with her mother Magdalena Gregorio Ordóñez. wfts.
Despite ‘safe haven’ laws that allow parents to legally surrender their newborn babies, the boy was left in deep bushes and bushes outside a trailer park. In the picture: the place where the residents found the crying newborn girl
The newborn baby was found around 2 a.m. Saturday morning near a trailer park in Mulberry, Florida.
Eulia Gregorio, 12, one of the residents who found the girl, said she was “really shocked” that the baby’s mother abandoned her.
Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said that despite his deputies going door-to-door in the area, the identity of the baby’s mother remains unknown.
“We’ve worked throughout the community and no one claims to know who the mother is,” the sheriff said. ‘So far, no one has cooperated, if they knew anything.’
“It was by the grace of God that we found the abandoned girl when we did, before exposure to cold or any animals could cause her harm.
“She’s left in an extremely vulnerable condition, but she’s a strong girl and she seems to be doing great.”
Despite being stranded in the dead of night where the temperature hovered in the 50s, Judd said the baby is doing exceptionally well, apart from a few bug bites.
Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said the newborn baby only survived his ordeal “by the grace of God.”
The baby, who authorities estimate was born just an hour before she was abandoned, was left for dead in some bushes near a trailer park in Mulberry, Florida.
‘I have named her Angel Grace LNU. She is as beautiful as an angel,” she said.
It is by the grace of God that she is not dead. And LNU is Last Name Unknown.’
After Magdalena and her daughter Eulia found the baby near their backyard, the sheriff’s office called a K-9 unit, a drone and a bloodhound looking for the mother.
Although they have been unsuccessful so far, the sheriff said she will likely be charged with child neglect once she is identified.
He said: ‘We will hold her accountable because she left this child abandoned in the woods, apparently, to die.
“We have already taken the appropriate DNA samples, and we will be at the FDLE lab in Tampa first thing in the morning with the DNA samples.”
Anyone with information on the whereabouts of the boy’s mother is asked to call the Polk County Sheriff’s Office at 863-293-6200.
Magdalena Gregorio Ordóñez and her 12-year-old daughter, pictured here, discovered the baby after hearing the cry, which they initially believed was a cat’s.
The baby was found around 2 a.m. Saturday by Magdalena Gregorio Ordóñez and her daughter Eulia near their backyard.
The sheriff also stressed that Florida has a “safe haven” law, which ensures that babies as young as one week old can be legally released to any hospital, fire department or EMS station.
“You can literally walk up, hand that baby over to a firefighter and walk away, and never reveal who you are,” she said.
There is no criminal liability for that.
This comes after another newborn baby was left in Florida’s only “safe haven” box earlier this month, the first time it has been used since it was installed in November 2020.
The box, embedded in the wall of a fire station in Ocala, is one of 134 Safe Haven boxes in the US that allow parents to anonymously surrender unwanted babies.
Although all US states have “safe haven” laws that allow parents to legally surrender their babies, nine states have also introduced baby boxes: Arizona, Arkansas, Indiana, Ohio, Florida, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Pennsylvania.
They have been used 23 times since the first one was released in November 2017.