She had only about half an hour to live when the newborn was found in a plastic bag.
|||SHE had only about half an hour to live when the newborn was found abandoned in a plastic bag in Eerste River, but the commitment of two paramedics and the staff of Eerste River Hospital saved her life.
Now the tiny newborn, nicknamed Hope, is getting plenty of care at the hospital, where the staff have fallen in love with her, determined to make up for her unhappy entrance into the world.
Emergency Medical Services paramedic Jeffrey Jacobs said if they’d arrived 30 minutes later, it would have been too late for the baby.
His partner, paramedic Valerie Abels, said Hope was so cold when they found her on Thursday morning that they couldn’t read her temperature. With the umbilical cord still attached, they rushed her into their ambulance.
“She was ice cold, shivering and she was crying,” she said.
The child was found in the backyard of a home in Condor Park, Eerste River, by one of the occupants on his way to work.
Abels said the man told them he heard the child crying from inside the bag. When the paramedics arrived on the scene, a woman had wrapped the baby in a towel.
Jacobs said they clamped the umbilical cord, rubbed the child and gave her oxygen.
“The baby was pale. We knew she needed heat. We put the heat on full in the vehicle and wrapped her in blankets.”
On arrival at the hospital, Hope was stabilised in an incubator, from which she was removed on Friday morning.
The child weighs three kilograms.
Provincial Health Department spokeswoman Angelique Jordaan said Hope’s case had also been assessed by a social worker.
Police spokesman Captain Frederick van Wyk said a concealment of birth case has been opened for investigation, but that no arrests had yet been made.
Anyone with information about the baby’s mother should call Crime Stop on 08600 10111. -Weekend Argus