SYRACUSE - A 6-year-old girl playing hide-and-seek with her grandmother found a newborn baby girl abandoned in a vacant lot next to her home.
Lilliana Williams-Rodriguez told her grandmother she had found a doll in the bushes.
But Thelma Williams, 55, who has six children, knew right away it wasn't a doll. She called 911.
The baby was taken to University Hospital with a fever but was expected to recover.
Police estimated the child was born an hour or two before she was discovered just after 6 p.m. Thursday, said police Sgt. Tom Connellan.
The baby's umbilical cord was still attached, he said. The infant was partially wrapped in a black shirt. Police weren't sure if the baby was born at the scene or brought there.
Williams said she was waiting for her granddaughter to hide when the girl came back to the porch and said she had found a doll in the bushes. Williams said she found the baby lying motionless in the weeds near a basketball hoop.
Lilliana was coloring on the porch when she had the idea to play hide-and-seek, Williams said. It was lucky her family was playing in the area when the baby was abandoned, she said.
“It was a game of hide-and-go-seek that turned into a day of reckoning,” she said.
Williams got a white dress to cover the baby. She, her daughter, and her daughter's friend, held and cradled the baby until firefighters arrived to take the little girl to the hospital.
“She was crying really loud and moving her arms and legs so I knew she was real healthy still. So that was a blessing,” said Timothy Pfaff, another neighbor who helped tend to the infant.
The state's Abandoned Infant Protection law allows parents unable to care for their newborns to leave them, no questions asked, with a responsible person at a hospital, police station or fire station.
A parent who abandons a child can be charged with endangering the welfare of a child, a misdemeanor, Connellan said. Police were continuing their search for the mother.
“Leaving the baby in the bushes like that - if the baby hadn't been found, it probably wouldn't have survived for long,” Connellan said.
But Thelma Williams, 55, who has six children, knew right away it wasn't a doll. She called 911.
The baby was taken to University Hospital with a fever but was expected to recover.
Police estimated the child was born an hour or two before she was discovered just after 6 p.m. Thursday, said police Sgt. Tom Connellan.
The baby's umbilical cord was still attached, he said. The infant was partially wrapped in a black shirt. Police weren't sure if the baby was born at the scene or brought there.
Williams said she was waiting for her granddaughter to hide when the girl came back to the porch and said she had found a doll in the bushes. Williams said she found the baby lying motionless in the weeds near a basketball hoop.
Lilliana was coloring on the porch when she had the idea to play hide-and-seek, Williams said. It was lucky her family was playing in the area when the baby was abandoned, she said.
“It was a game of hide-and-go-seek that turned into a day of reckoning,” she said.
Williams got a white dress to cover the baby. She, her daughter, and her daughter's friend, held and cradled the baby until firefighters arrived to take the little girl to the hospital.
“She was crying really loud and moving her arms and legs so I knew she was real healthy still. So that was a blessing,” said Timothy Pfaff, another neighbor who helped tend to the infant.
The state's Abandoned Infant Protection law allows parents unable to care for their newborns to leave them, no questions asked, with a responsible person at a hospital, police station or fire station.
A parent who abandons a child can be charged with endangering the welfare of a child, a misdemeanor, Connellan said. Police were continuing their search for the mother.
“Leaving the baby in the bushes like that - if the baby hadn't been found, it probably wouldn't have survived for long,” Connellan said.
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