BURBANK : Baby Stable After Freeway Incident

A 4-month-old boy, whose mother threatened to kill him and herself on a freeway overpass, was in stable condition Tuesday at Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles, authorities said.

The baby, son of Susan Dancs, 25, of Glendale, was “coming along,” said Denise Henry, a nursing supervisor at the hospital. The child’s name was being withheld.

When the child is well enough to leave the hospital, he will be placed in the custody of the Department of Children’s Services, according to Burbank police.

The incident began about 5:30 p.m. Monday. Burbank Police Sgt. Rick Madrid said he responded to a report of a woman carrying an infant and walking on the southbound on-ramp of the Golden State Freeway near Alameda Avenue in Burbank.

Madrid said he found Dancs walking on the freeway wearing an evening gown and carrying the baby under her right arm. Madrid said that when he asked her where she was going she didn’t answer, and just kept walking.

Madrid said he became worried as the woman approached the freeway overpass near Allen Avenue in Glendale.

“I felt that she might be planning to go over the overpass, and kill herself and the baby, and I knew I had to prevent that,” he said Tuesday.

He said he grabbed the woman’s elbow and asked her to stay with him until he could arrange to have police take her home.

The woman began screaming hysterically, pulled away from Madrid and darted into the path of oncoming traffic, Madrid said. He pulled her to safety. But Dancs began squeezing the baby in a “bear hug,” laid down on the pavement and rolled over onto her stomach, apparently trying to hurt the baby, he said.

“I could tell the child was in distress,” he said. “Its face was changing color and it was screaming very loud, then there was almost no screams and no movement.”

Two passersby helped him free the baby from the woman’s grasp, said Madrid.

Dancs was taken to St. Joseph’s Medical Center in Burbank for psychiatric and physical evaluation.