Infant Girl Found in Crate Behind Anaheim Market

An infant believed to be less than two hours old was found abandoned in a milk crate behind an Anaheim supermarket Saturday morning, police said.

The 7-pound, 9-ounce girl, found wrapped in a small yellow blanket, was reported in good condition late Saturday at Martin Luther Hospital in Anaheim.

“The baby looks nice and healthy,” said Dr. Leonard Fox, director of the hospital’s neonatal intensive care nursery.

Don Moreno, 28, a supermarket employee, said he was loading produce into a bin behind the Alpha Beta store at 915 S. Brookhurst St. at about 8 a.m. when night janitor Lauro Arellano came running from the loading dock.

“Lauro said he’d found a baby by the trash bin,” Moreno said. “I went out there and saw this baby in a milk crate.”

The baby’s head, face and hands were uncovered, and were cold, Moreno said. She was covered with blood, and part of the umbilical cord was still attached, he said.

While Arellano watched the baby, Moreno ran into the store and called Anaheim police.

“I was really nervous,” Moreno said. “I couldn’t imagine somebody doing something like that to a baby. . . . I had this real sad feeling.”

A store clerk, Cindy Broesder, 23, ran out to see. The infant, she said, “was trying to cry, but there was mucous in her throat. I was scared she was going to choke.

“I felt so bad,” Broesder said. “It was a terrible thing to happen to a baby. . . . I wanted to do something--to take her up in my arms. But I couldn’t hold her because we were waiting for the police to get there.”

Kept Her Hands Warm

As she knelt beside the baby, Broesder put the baby’s hands in hers. “I held her hands because I wanted her to be warm.” She added, “It was all I and the others could do to hold back the tears. It was really upsetting.”

Police arrived in about five minutes, said Dave Hall, the market’s assistant manger. They put the girl “in the back of the car and turned on their heater to keep her warm,” Hall said. Anaheim Fire Department paramedics arrived about five minutes later, Hall said, and asked for some tinfoil.

“They placed the foil next to this heater they had to help get the baby warm,” he said.

Fox said that when paramedics arrived with the infant at the hospital at 8:30 a.m., she was suffering from hypothermia, a condition caused by a drop in her body temperature from 98.6 to 94 degrees.

“But she had no other problems,” said Fox, who estimated she was two hours old when she was found.

Tests Planned

The infant, apparently Latino, will remain at the hospital for three days to a week for tests, until doctors are sure she has no infections and is eating well, Fox said.

Then she will be turned over to Orangewood, a county home for abused or abandoned children.

“The baby will stay at Orangewood while the police search for her mother,” Orangewood spokeswoman Sandra Buckley said. “If the mother is not found in a reasonable time, then the baby will go to a foster home.”

But, Buckley said, “A newborn is abandoned here in Orange County about once every six months, and usually a relative pops up. . . . And the mother sometimes has a change of heart” and wants the baby back.

Whether the infant would be returned to the mother depends on various factors, Buckley said.

“If the mother turns out to have been scared, enrolls in a parenting program and is supported in trying to keep the baby by her own parents, then she probably can get the baby back. . . . Or, the baby could be put up for adoption, if that is what the mother wants.”

Buckley said newborns usually are abandoned by “scared young girls who don’t know what to do with their babies. A lot of times they don’t know they’re pregnant, and suddenly they give birth to a baby.”