A Texas couple sprang into action as soon as they noticed an abandoned newborn with her umbilical cord still attached while walking along a trail Saturday morning.
Daniela Fedele said she and her husband were walking along Casa Martin Drive in Katy, Texas, when they noticed a towel on the ground.
His three-year-old daughter started riding her bike toward it, before Fedele said he noticed something moving underneath.
“I noticed two little feet moving and then my husband was right behind me with the dogs and I screamed at my husband and said, ‘Oh my God, a baby, a baby,'” Fedele. told KHOU.
“And then my husband (says) like, ‘Call 911, call 911,’ and that’s what we did.”
Daniela Fedele told how she and her husband found a newborn on the side of a trail on Saturday morning
Harris County sheriff’s deputies said they received the call around 9 a.m. and rushed to the scene.
Meanwhile, Fedele and her husband tried to keep the baby safe, and local police praised their quick thinking for saving his life.
Surveillance footage showed the couple running toward the baby with their dogs and Fedele’s husband grabbing him, before running to get the child out of the sun.
‘Once my husband went ahead and picked up the baby, he found the nearest tree, right there at the house down the street. He found some shade,” Fedele said.
They then waited until Harris County Sheriff’s Office deputies arrived at the scene and handed over the baby, telling officials they saw a man running away.
The baby was then taken to a local hospital, where she was in good condition. according to KHOU.
The two immediately called 911 and held the baby under a tree for shade.
They handed the newborn over to authorities and took her to a local hospital.
Authorities said Fedele and her husband may have rescued the baby from death and described them as a “blessing” in her time of need.
“The two witnesses who luckily were walking the trail with their daughter and their dogs were a blessing,” said Sgt. Juan García, who works in the Child Abuse Unit.
“The baby was a newborn…he still had, you know, fresh placenta in the baby, so he was just born this morning,” she said.
Fedele says he can’t get the image out of his head and wonders how someone could abandon his baby.
“I was shocked, I was angry, I was upset,” she said of finding the newborn, adding that there are options for new parents who don’t want to raise a baby.
‘You can leave him at a fire station, a police station, a hospital, I don’t know… but don’t leave the baby.’
Police say cases of people abandoning babies are rare and are now searching for a man they believe abandoned the baby.
He is described as a young Hispanic or white man, with a thin build and light complexion. He was wearing a black shirt and possibly gray pants at the time of the abandonment.
