June 18, 2004
A Miracle
Here's some local news for you. A newborn was abandoned at the bottom of a chemical toilet yesterday. Yes, that's right, in the waste, at the bottom. Why the miracle? The baby survived, but barely. The doctor on the news last night said another half hour and she wouldn't have made it. She's still in critical condition though, so send a few prayers her way.
A newborn girl abandoned Thursday in a portable toilet near Soledad is in critical condition in a Palo Alto hospital.The baby's mother, a 17-year-old field worker, was arrested on suspicion of attempted murder and was taken to Natividad Medical Center in Salinas. Her daughter was initially taken to Salinas Valley Memorial Hospital, then transferred to the Lucile Packard Children's Hospital at Stanford Medical Center for specialized treatment.
A field foreman found the newborn girl around 10:45 a.m. in the waste reservoir of a portable toilet at a Gardoni Farms labor camp on Camphora-Gloria Road, about a mile east of Highway 101 in Soledad. Workers alerted the foreman to the sound of a screaming child.
The foreman pulled the newborn out and immediately called 911. The baby was discovered with its umbilical cord still attached. It was not immediately clear whether birth occurred in the portable toilet or if the baby was dropped into the waste tank.
Monterey County sheriff's deputies and medical personnel responded to the scene. Around 11:30 a.m., emergency workers alerted Salinas Valley Memorial Hospital that the child was in an ambulance, on her way there.
Dr. David Kasting, the neo-natalogist who treated the girl, said she was probably trapped in the toilet for one or two hours. He found the child had a body temperature of 80.5 degrees, well below a newborn's normal temperature of about 97 degrees.
"In all my years, I have never seen a newborn this cold," he said.
Doctors were concerned with the girl's respiratory system, but her lung function appeared good and her heart rate was stable at Salinas Valley. Kasting also said the child did not appear to have ingested any harmful fluids. It appeared she was born seven weeks prematurely.
The newborn was stable at Salinas Valley, although doctors feared she could have suffered brain damage. She was trasferred to Stanford around 7 p.m. Late Thursday, doctors there changed her condition to critical.
You can read the entire article here.
Posted by Ithildin at June 18, 2004 8:29 AM | PROCURE FINE OLD WORLD ABSINTHE