Mother charged after newborn abandoned in front of apartment building in Chelsea
CHELSEA, Manhattan (WABC) -- A mother has been charged after a newborn was found abandoned in front of an apartment building in Manhattan early Thursday morning.
A doorman stepped out to grab food when he found the baby boy outside of the building at 515 West 23rd St. around 3:20 a.m.
Police say the newborn had his umbilical cord attached and was wearing no clothing and crying.
At the time, the doorman called over an EMT, who is assigned to nearby FDNY EMS Station 7 and was finishing a shift, for help.
The first responder evaluated the newborn and the boy was taken to Bellevue Hospital where he is said to be stable.
The mother, 37-year-old Ayatta Swann, checked herself into Bellevue Hospital shortly after giving birth. When medical staff asked about her baby, she was unable to tell them.
When the abandoned newborn arrived at the same hospital, staff members were able to put it together.
Swann was charged with abandonment of a child.
Mia Chin and her partner Patrick Feimer had just gotten back to their station when a man started banging on their ambulance window.
"Getting a knock on the window like that, you don't know what you're going to walk into," Feimer said.
"But then you remember what your instructor, what your lieutenants, what your medics, what everyone has assured you that you're part of a community, you're part of a family, and we have each other when we don't know what to do," Chin said.
The super of the building next door came out when he heard the commotion and spoke with the doorman, who he says was in shock, and should be credited with saving this baby's life.
"He told me that when he came out he saw a clump of something on the concrete and he heard the baby crying," Cedric Fraser said. "He was a young kid, he said, 'I never saw nothing like this before, I never seen nothing like this before,' I said 'just calm down, you're a kid.'"
Under New York State law, parents can legally and anonymously abandon a newborn up to 30 days old, as long as it is at a safe location like a hospital or a staffed fire station. The parent must also promptly notify someone but is not required to give their name.
It is not clear how long the baby was on the sidewalk before he was found.
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