Infant found outside church; ‘God let people hear the baby crying’
BY DAN ROZEK Staff Reporter/drozek@suntimes.com October 24, 2011 10:54AM
Education pastor Don Chin at Gospel Presbyterian Church in Schaumburg, where a baby was found after Sunday services.
Safe Haven Law
Under Illinois law, a mother can, with no questions asked, hand an unharmed baby up to 30 days old to a staff person at a staffed:
♦ hospital
♦ fire station
♦ police station
♦ sheriff’s office
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Updated: November 26, 2011 8:08AM
The cries of a newborn girl abandoned in a grocery bag at a Schaumburg church led congregation members to discover her tucked under a teddy bear and a bath towel.
But her rescuers think there was something more that helped them find the baby as the Gospel Presbyterian Church emptied after Sunday services.
“I definitely feel God was working in this situation,” said Bob Song, a church elder who helped find the 5-pound, 9-ounce girl.
If no one had heard the newborn crying Sunday from inside the green, recyclable grocery sack, she might not have been discovered for two days because the church is typically closed and empty on Monday.
“That would have been too late,” Song said, worrying that the baby could have died by then. “I felt so good that God let people hear the baby crying.”
Schaumburg police were trying Monday to determine who abandoned the baby — her umbilical cord still attached — at the Korean-American church.
The little girl, who appears to be a few days old, was in “very, very good condition” Monday at Alexian Brothers Medical Center in Elk Grove Village, hospital spokeswoman Mary Ellen Larson said.
She’s already been through a lot in her short life.
The bag that held her initially was found outside the church, sitting on a car parked in its lot. At first glance, it appeared to contain only the stuffed bear and a reddish brown towel, said Don Shin, the church’s education pastor.
A church member brought the sack inside and set it on a table in the lobby, thinking a church member had left the bag on the car by mistake, Shin said.
It sat unattended for as long as an hour before a passing church member heard the baby’s faint cries, then rushed to tell church elders meeting in another room.
Song pulled out the teddy bear, then carefully opened the towel to discover the baby — who he said looked healthy, alert and adorable.
“She was a really pretty girl. My heart just fell for her,” said Song, 48, the father of two college-age children.
Song called 911, bringing police and fire department paramedics to the church to attend to the baby, whom police said appears to be of Asian descent.
Church leaders doubt a member of the small congregation, which numbers only about 200 adults, abandoned the baby.
Song believes someone probably left the baby outside the church in hopes the infant would be quickly found.
“I think there was no ill intention,” he said. “I think the mother intended to find someone who could look after her.”
Now, he said, church members will be praying for the child — and her mother.
“I cannot imagine what she would have gone through to make that situation happen,” said Song. “My heart goes out to the mother, too.”
Illinois law allows parents to drop off unwanted newborns at designated “safe havens” — police and fire stations, as well as hospitals — without facing the possibility of being prosecuted.
That doesn’t include churches, though Schaumburg police said they want to find out who abandoned the baby and why before deciding whether to seek criminal charges.
“It’s not at all a foregone conclusion that anyone is going to be prosecuted,” said Sgt. John Nebl, a police spokesman.
The baby is likely to be released shortly into the custody of the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services, where she will be placed in foster care, a spokesman said.
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