A man on his way to work made a startling discovery Thursday when he heard a baby’s cries coming from a bush outside a Texas apartment complex, according to multiple reports.
Albert Peterson told KHOU that he thought the sound was coming from a toy until he looked in the bushes and found a baby girl.
“She had the mucus and the blood and umbilical cord and everything,” Peterson told the news station. “That’s just sad, for a human being to do another human being like that."
Peterson found the infant around 5 a.m. and took her to his apartment, where he called authorities, KPRC reported. Harris County deputies determined that the girl was less than an hour old when she was found, according to the news station.
She was taken to a hospital, where she was listed in good condition, KPRC reported.
"Had this neighbor not been here, we'd be looking at a homicide," Harris County deputy Thomas Gilliland told the news station. "It's a miracle the child was found."
Investigators told KHOU that deputies followed a trail of blood that led away from the child and to one of the apartments. Inside they found two people, including a 21-year-old woman who admitted to being the baby's mother, according to KPRC.
"She walked all the way around that corner bleeding," Peterson told KTRK. "You see her footprints on the ground."
The mother, who was not identified, could face charges of child abandonment.
In a Facebook post, Harris County sheriff's deputies said the discovery Thursday morning "shook the community (and left) deputies who first responded heavyhearted."
Deputies urged people to remember that Texas’ Safe Haven Law, also known as the Baby Moses Law, allows parents to surrender children younger than 60 days old at hospitals, fire stations or child welfare agencies.
“No one has to abandon a child again,” deputies said.
Authorities continue to investigate the case.
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