Police Seek Mother of Abandoned Infant

An afternoon game of hide-and-seek transformed playmates into neighborhood heroes after they found a newborn girl whose wails they heard through the plastic sack in which she had been tied and then abandoned.

Santa Ana police Wednesday were investigating the Tuesday abandonment, while county offices were flooded with calls from people looking to adopt the infant, who was only hours old when she was discovered. She was described as being in “very, very good condition” Wednesday at Children’s Hospital of Orange County in Orange.

For an hour before she was found, residents at the La Mar apartments on Civic Center Drive heard a baby crying off and on, they said Wednesday. Many thought nothing of it. Kids are everywhere at the complex, and the sound of an infant crying was a familiar one.

But a group of about eight boys, ages 7 to 11, grew more curious about the crying during their game adjacent to the apartments. The sound led them around an ivy-covered wall to the parking lot next door.

The wails, they saw, came from a tan plastic bag from a chain store that had been tied shut. Afraid to touch it, they called for help.

“There’s a baby here,” Eduardo Cuellar, 7, shouted to his mother, Maria. A crowd gathered as Jesus Lara, 8, alerted the property manager, who also came running. He and Maria Cuellar took the baby, wrapped in a bloody towel, from the bag.

“I thought she was a doll,” Maria Cuellar said. “She was so small. And I didn’t think anyone would abandon a baby here.”

But there was blood, and, unwrapping the baby, Cuellar saw that she was wet and the umbilical cord had not been cut.

Cuellar’s daughter, 12-year-old Nora, dialed 911, took instructions from emergency operators and helped her mother wrap the baby in a clean towel.

“I just held her and touched her cheek,” Cuellar said. “I wanted to cry. I was scared that the baby was going to die.”

She said the dark-haired, dark-eyed baby was soothed enough to stop wailing and sigh in her arms.

Police said the 7-pound, 1-ounce baby could not have been more than a couple of hours old when she was discovered at 5 p.m. Tuesday.

Paramedics took the newborn to Children’s Hospital, where on Wednesday she spent part of the morning being cuddled by volunteer Mary Collier of Irvine.

“She’s precious, and she’s beautiful,” Collier said.

Authorities already have received numerous calls from people who want to adopt her.

Meanwhile, police Wednesday were still looking for the mother, who could be charged with child abandonment and endangerment. They spent hours in the area with search dogs, which only led investigators down an alley to the street, where they lost the scent.

“The important thing is that we find the mother so we can learn what circumstances forced her to abandon her child,” said acting police spokesman Lt. Robert Helton. “She may need our assistance.”

Locally, child abandonment is rare, according to the Orange County Social Services Agency. The department dealt with no such cases in all of 1999 and only one in 1998. But a media survey by the U.S. Department of Heath and Human Services suggests a growing trend in such abandonments nationwide.

Bills introduced recently in the California Legislature by Sen. Jim Brulte (R-Ranch Cucamonga) and Assemblyman Ken Maddox (R-Garden Grove) would allow mothers with unwanted babies up to 30 days old to leave them at county hospital emergency rooms, police or fire stations and child protective agencies without threat of prosecution.

Meanwhile, the group of boys who found the abandoned baby were thrilled with their detective and rescue work.

“It feels happy,” Jesus Lara said. “I’m very proud of myself.”

When the baby is released from the hospital, she is expected to be turned over to the Social Services Agency, which will handle her placement.

But if it was up to Cuellar, the baby would stay with her. She spent the night worrying about the child, and her family wants to see her again. “I want to keep her,” Cuellar said, smiling. “I wish she were mine.”