A California man who helped rescue a newborn girl from a dumpster says he believes that the girl’s rescue was a miracle.
Jimmy Alvarez responded when he heard Jorge Miranda call for help Thursday just before 6 a.m.
Miranda was looking for cans and bottles in a south Merced apartment complex dumpster to sell for recycling, according to the Merced Sun-Star, when he found the baby girl wrapped in a towel under pizza boxes and plastic trash bags.
“He was shocked, he was scared,” Alvarez said of Miranda, who speaks limited English. “The baby was lying in the corner of the dumpster, half naked, the umbilical cord hanging.”
Miranda said the discovery made him feel “very bad.”
Alvarez told the Merced newspaper he wrapped the baby in his own shirt, while his wife called 911.
Alvarez said he asked the paramedics if he could name the child “Milagros.”
“It means ‘miracle,’” he said. “It was a miracle she was there, it was a miracle she was found. I’m just grateful it wasn’t dumpster day.”
Alvarez said his wife held the baby, who was breathing, but cold to the touch, and gently massaged her chest. “Then (the child) just gasped and started crying.”
The baby appeared to be a few hours old and was taken to a local hospital. As of Thursday she was expected to survive, the paper reported.
Police believe the child’s mother may live in or near the apartment complex where the baby was abandoned, and expressed concern for the mother’s well-being.
“We’re very concerned for the mother’s health and just want to make sure she’s OK,” Merced Police Captain Tom Trindad told the newspaper.
It is still early in the investigation and unknown if criminal charges will be filed, police said.
California’s 2006 “Safely Surrendered Baby Law” is similar to safe haven laws across the country that make hospitals, fire stations and police stations “safe” locations where parents of children up to three days old can drop off their infants with no questions asked.
Unfortunately pregnant mothers often don’t take advantage of them, with tragic results.
The “miracle” baby girl from Merced is being cared for by Merced County Human Services, where donations are also being accepted on her behalf.
