ShareThisBy JENNIFER FEEHAN
Toledo Blade
Thursday, May 17, 2007
The white cardboard box caught her eye first, but it was the poignant words written on one side that made her curious enough to look inside.
"Please take care of me. I was born May 15. (My mommy can't.)"
Twelve-year-old Rebecca Simpson said she was expecting to see puppies when she peered into the box but instead saw a blue towel and two tiny hands.
"I saw hands moving, and I started freaking out," Rebecca, a sixth grader, said, just a few hours after discovering a newborn baby boy inside a restroom at a local park.
The school orchestra, in which the girl plays violin, had just arrived at the park for a pizza party after performing at two local elementary schools when what should have been a quick trip to the restroom turned out to be the unfolding of a mystery.
Findlay Police Lt. Chuck Wilson said investigators want to speak to the baby's mother, but so far have no leads on who that might be. The baby, who was described as a male Caucasian weighing just over 5 pounds, was being examined at Blanchard Valley Hospital where doctors expected to keep him overnight for observation.
"The baby appears to be healthy," Wilson said, adding that physicians believe he was 24 to 48 hours old when he was found.
The lieutenant said it concerned him that the baby may not have been found so quickly if the Glenwood students had not gone to the park for a field trip.
"You see it on TV. You hear about it in storybooks, but you never think it's going to happen in real life," said Deanna Shank, school secretary at Glenwood and the first person Rebecca told about her discovery.
Shank, who was chaperoning the orchestra trip, said she was a bit skeptical when Rebecca ran up and told her she found a box in the bathroom with a baby in it. She thought perhaps it was a doll, but as soon as she got to the restroom it was clear this was a real baby.
The baby was not crying, she said, but had no clothing or diaper. He was wrapped in a light blue towel and appeared to be clean. There was no clamp on the umbilical cord, indicating that he probably wasn't born in a hospital, Shank said.
She scooped up the box and then she, Rebecca, and another student found a park employee who took them into his office and called police.
"At that point I took the baby out of the box and held him," Shank said, adding that when the ambulance arrived, she hated to give him up. "I didn't want to see him go. It's weird how your motherly instincts take over."
Contact Jennifer Feehan at jfeehan(at)theblade.com. For more stories visit scrippsnews.com
