Fire houses designated as safe surrender sites...

Fire houses designated as safe surrender sites

Mothers who might otherwise abandon their newborn children will

instead be able to surrender them to all county firehouses, following

a vote by the Orange County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday.

All 138 fire houses in the county will be designated as safe

surrender sights where mothers can leave newborns, no questions

asked, Costa Mesa Fire Chief Jim Ellis said. The county’s hospitals

have served as surrender sights since 2001.

“We’ll just provide another option to someone who has got to that

point where they can’t take care of a child,” Ellis said. “It’ll be

another avenue to take care of the child rather that abandon it.”

Firefighters will work with area hospitals, which will examine

surrendered babies and pass them on to the county for adoption, Ellis

said. Details of the program are yet to be finalized but should be in

the next two months, he said.

Three men injured

in apparent shooting

Three men were injured in an apparent shooting outside a Costa

Mesa bar early Saturday.

Costa Mesa police received a call just after 1:30 a.m. Saturday of

shots fired, following a fight in the VIP room of a bar in the 500

block of Anton Boulevard, Sgt. Marty Carver said. A private party

was going on inside the room at the time, but those involved in the

shooting left before police arrived, he said.

Police later found two shooting victims at Costal Community

Hospital in Santa Ana and another at UC Irvine Medical Center in

Santa Ana, Carver said.

None of the injuries were life-threatening.

The men were all in their 20s and residents of Anaheim and Orange,

Carver said.

Police believe the shooting took place in the parking lot after

the fight moved outside. No suspects are in custody in connection

with the incident.