Woman Heard Crying, Went Outside and Found Newborn

On Friday night, a Florida woman thought she was hearing cats yowling and fighting until around midnight. An hour and a half later, she thought she heard something else: the cries of an infant. She and her husband went out into the woods outside a Polk County mobile home park and found a baby, still attached to her placenta with umbilical cord, on a hill outside the trailer park, police say. They called 911 and emergency workers brought the baby girl to a hospital, Fox 13 reports. She was 6.5 pounds, fully developed, and in good health, other than a few bug bites she got in the 60 to 90 minutes or so she'd been left outside. The temperature was in the low 50s (Fahrenheit) at the time.

“It was by the grace of God that we found the abandoned baby girl when we did, before exposure to the cold or any animals caused her any harm. She was left in an extremely vulnerable condition, but she’s a strong little girl, and it looks like she’s doing great,” says Sheriff Grady Judd. She was wrapped in old blankets, the AP reports. Police searched for the infant's mother using a K-9 unit, a bloodhound, and a drone, but could not locate her. The sheriff says if found, she will be "held accountable" for leaving her baby outside. Florida's safe haven law allows newborns to be left anonymously at a fire station or medical facility for up to a week after they're born.

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