Firefighters in Hobbs, New Mexico saved a newborn baby just months after installing a new “safe haven baby box” at their fire station.
A mother in crisis anonymously surrendered her baby by placing it in the box – a secure, temperature-controlled container with oxygen, LifeNews reports. When the door to the box closes, an alarm in the fire station sounds, alerting the firefighters to the baby’s presence.
After the child’s mother shut the door, Interim Fire Chief Mark Doporto of the Hobbs Fire Department got an alert that a baby had been placed inside.
The firefighters immediately responded and brought the child to a hospital, where the child was examined and deemed healthy.
“I couldn’t be happier that a citizen or someone decided to use this baby box for the best outcome of this child,” said Interim Fire Chief Doporto, adding,
I mean this is exactly why we put the baby box in the Hobbs Fire Department Station One, and they just couldn’t be happier with the end result – a safe baby taken to the hospital and healthy.
The station’s baby box was the first in Hobbs, NM, and the second in the entire state.
LifeNews reports the New Mexico Legislature “passed a bill last year to expand the baby box program after a teenager in Hobbs threw her newborn in a dumpster. She was later sentenced to 16 years in prison.”
The nonprofit organization Safe Haven Baby Boxes is on a mission to “prevent illegal abandonment of newborns by raising awareness, offering a 24-hour hotline for mothers and crisis and offering the Safe Haven Baby Boxes as a last resort option for women who want to maintain complete anonymity.”
Moms in crisis can call or text Safe Haven Baby Boxes’ hotline at 1-866-99BABY1.
To date, the organization has received over 9,000 calls to its hotline, has referred over 500 women to pregnancy resource centers, assisted in nine adoption referrals, and has seen over 140 legal Safe Haven surrenders; 36 babies have been surrendered at Safe Haven Baby Boxes.
Each and every human life has infinite worth and value, because each and every person is made in the imago dei – the image and likeness of God.
“Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth’” (Genesis 1:26, ESV).
For this reason, in the early church, Christians were known for rescuing unwanted babies abandoned by their parents and left to die of exposure.
Today, the Church continues her mission of rescuing babies – born and unborn. Millions of innocent children have been saved through the generosity of Christians funding dedicated pro-life campaigns – like Focus on the Family’s Option Ultrasound Program.
Our nation’s approximately 3,000 pregnancy resource centers (PRCs) saved an estimated 818,131 lives from 2016-2020 alone, with millions saved over the last half-century.
In 2019, these PRCs served roughly two million women, men and children, providing them with over $266 million in services at no cost. PRCs employed 14,977 staff, enlisted 53,855 volunteers and provided 731,881 pregnancy tests, 486,213 ultrasounds and 160,201 tests for sexually transmitted infections.
As the hands and feet of Jesus Christ, the Christian Church is engaging in the largest pro-life campaign humanity has ever seen.
That is truly cause for celebration.
Currently, the United States has more than 440,000 children in foster care. Focus on the Family’s Wait No More program helps inspire families to become involved in the lives of waiting kids, whether through adoption or in a different way.
To learn more about Wait No More, click here.
Focus on the Family has been working to turn the cultural tide and save mothers and babies from abortion for years. Since beginning the Option Ultrasound Program in 2004, Focus has helped save nearly half a million lives.
Our goal is to save one million babies by 2025. Just $60 will save a life through Option Ultrasound. Will you partner with us to save a life from abortion here?
Related articles and resources:
Focus on the Family: Option Ultrasound
Firefighter Adopts Newborn He Rescued From Safe Haven Baby Box: ‘She Is Very Loved’
Teen Raises $10K to Install Safe Haven Baby Box, Newborn Saved Just One Year Later
Photo from YouTube.
