Search for Flowers Turns Up Newborn in Trash Bin : Baby: Authorities credit Hawthorne man with saving life of 5-hour-old, abandoned infant. Child’s mother is being sought.

Ronald Hesslup’s early morning forays for discarded flowers usually net him handsome bouquets, but on Thursday his hunt turned up a newborn boy.

Shortly before 3 a.m., Hesslup approached a trash bin outside a floral warehouse near his Hawthorne home and heard what he thought was a cat meowing. Inside, he found an infant wrapped tightly in a blood-stained bath towel, the umbilical cord still attached.

“At first, I said, ‘Hello,’ thinking that if a cat was in there, I’d scare it out,” said Hesslup, 34, a student and part-time laboratory worker. “Then I heard a gurgling noise and saw movement in the towel and said to myself, ‘That’s no cat.’ ”

Hesslup called authorities, who took the baby to Harbor-UCLA Medical Center near Torrance and began a search for the mother. A hospital spokeswoman said the boy was in stable condition, adding that he was about 5 hours old when he was found.

Police said that if it had not been for Hesslup, the infant’s chances of survival would have been slim. “A newborn child is very fragile,” said Lt. Jan Ogden. “Without somebody finding him fast, this might not have had a happy ending.”

Hesslup, who has three children and said his wife is expecting a fourth, hopes to adopt the abandoned baby. But even if the attempt fails, he said he still feels rewarded.

“You hear people say that this is what anybody would do,” he said. “But you still know you are the only thing between that baby’s life and death. It’s a staggering thought.”

The county Department of Children’s Services plan to hold a news conference today to release a picture of the baby and urge relatives to come forward.

“We feel every child has the right to know who their family is,” said Ray LaMotte, a spokeswoman for the agency. In previous cases, she said, “we’ve never had the parents come forward, (but) we’ve had relatives come forward, and we’ve been able to place the child in the homes of their natural relatives.”

Hesslup said he found the baby while searching two trash bins behind the warehouse on West 139th Street near Kornblum Avenue.

He uses the flowers for decoration and to make dried arrangements he hopes to offer for sale. The inside of Hesslup’s small stucco house is festooned with reclaimed bouquets hanging to dry. Rescued floral arrangements and poinsettia plants sit on tables around the room.

Hesslup said that when he peered into the trash bin, he spotted the baby amid discarded flowers and pine needles. He said he did not remove the child, deciding instead to call police from his home.

“When I heard the child, I realized it was a crime scene and I didn’t want to disturb it,” he said.

After paramedics took the baby to Harbor-UCLA, the trash bin was hauled to the Hawthorne police station, where its contents will be examined.

Police said they are contacting nearby hospitals where the mother may have sought treatment, questioning residents in the neighborhood where the baby was found, and awaiting leads prompted by news of the incident.

“Sometimes we get help in these cases when somebody who knows the mother sees (a report) on the news and calls us,” said Lt. Jan Ogden.

“It’s really sad when somebody has to be so desperate,” she said.