Newborn Baby ‘Noel’ Doing Well After She’s Discovered in Gutter

A newborn baby girl was found abandoned in a residential neighborhood Wednesday by a man who spotted the infant lying in a cardboard box in a street gutter.

The child, who had been wrapped in two blue acrylic blankets, is in good condition at Samaritan Medical Center-San Clemente, and is being treated there for hypothermia.

She is white, has dark hair and dark eyes, is 19 inches long and weighs 5 pounds, 10 ounces.

Nurses at the hospital named the baby Noel in honor of the holiday season.

“She was cold and she was hungry,” said Vicki Sweet, the hospital’s director of emergency services. “As we warmed her up and gave her fluids, she started to fuss a little bit.”

The discovery of Noel marks the fourth time this year--and the third in the past two months--that a newborn has been found abandoned in Orange County.

The baby was found about 8:15 a.m. in the 100 block of Avenida Dolores, an older section of the city. A doctor at Samaritan gave Baby Noel the middle name Dolores in honor of the street.

The man, whose identity was withheld, told police that he was picking up his morning newspaper when he saw the small cardboard box lying in a gutter about 50 feet from his house, near the sixth green of San Clemente Municipal Golf Course. As he approached the box, he heard a baby’s cry. And when he looked inside, he found the baby, with part of her umbilical cord still attached. The man then took the infant inside his house and telephoned police, said San Clemente police investigator Bart Massey.

“The scary part is where the baby is found--in a gutter,” said San Clemente Fire Department spokesman Jack Stubbs. “This is not a doorstep delivery, which some of them are.”

When paramedics arrived at the scene, the baby was in stable condition. The baby fell asleep in the paramedics’ truck on the way to the hospital, Stubbs said.

“Her temperature was a little low when she first came in,” said hospital nurse Carol Harrison. “But now she’s warm.” The baby spent the afternoon sleeping comfortably in an incubator.

“The baby is very, very good, doesn’t cry much, eats well,” said hospital spokeswoman Kathy McInerney.

“Noel Dolores” was the talk of the day at the medical center. The infant attracted hospital staffers who gazed at her as she slept among about half a dozen other newborns in the maternity ward nursery.

“She’s so sweet, she’s so beautiful,” Sweet said.

The baby will remain in an isolation nursery at the hospital for three days, and then be transferred to Orangewood Children’s Home for abandoned or neglected youngsters.

Police so far have no leads, but a neighbor reported seeing a blue sedan driving slowly down the street about 15 minutes before the discovery. Massey, however, said that it is common for drivers to go slow in that area.