A 14-year-old girl walked into a New Jersey restaurant recently and gave away her newborn baby to a stranger.
The startling security camera footage will have you wondering how something like this could happen.
The teenager had just given birth, and presumably, with no one else to turn to, she looked to a random stranger for help.
El Patron is a Mexican restaurant in Jersey City, New Jersey, that “serves the best tacos in the area”.
They are used to serving up customers with enchiladas and burritos, not dealing with newborn babies.
Restaurant employee Frankie Aguilar reported to Penn Live what happened when the girl walked into the restaurant asking for assistance.
“She kind of looked a little bit desperate. Once she handed the baby to someone else, one of our customers, she just left,” said Aguilar.
Aguilar was working upfront when it happened, so he saw it all first hand.
The 14-year-old came in asking for help, and within a minute, she gave the newborn baby girl to a random diner sitting at one of the tables.
It happened at 4:00 pm in the middle of the day.
Luckily, she came in to drop off the baby before the restaurant’s dinner rush began!
The teenager said that she had found the newborn.
Then she handed it off to restaurant patron Alease Scott, and seconds later, she was out the door. The baby still had the umbilical cord attached!
“[The girl] readily handed the baby over to me so my focus went right onto the baby,” Scott told Newsweek.
Additional video footage shows the patron of the restaurant holding the baby and checking her vitals to make sure that she is okay.
At the same time, the restaurant called the police to get some assistance.
By the time the police got there, the newborn was already struggling.
Scott, who is trained in CPR, recognized that the baby was experiencing labored breathing.
Fortunately, the police had some oxygen and medical supplies on hand, which, Scott said drastically improved the situation.
“Once I applied the oxygen mask to the baby, all of a sudden we heard the most beautiful cry and the baby started moving,” said Scott.
“She slightly opened up her eyes and then she closed her eyes but the sweetest thing was when she got hungry and she was trying to suckle on the oxygen mask so we knew she was OK after that.”
After the oxygen mask was applied, the baby sprung to life. It was clear after that point that she was going to survive.
Later that day, the police also located the 14-year-old who abandoned the baby in the restaurant.
She will not be receiving any charges for what happened, but the baby will be going up for adoption. It’s a learning lesson for the teenager. You can’t just give away a baby to a random stranger in a restaurant. You need to go through the proper channels, for everyone’s safety.
All states in the USA have Safe Haven laws, meaning that there are several legal ways for mothers to relinquish their newborns to the authorities without risk of getting into trouble.
🚼 New Jersey has Safe Havens for newborns 🚼
If you're stressed, if you feel like you have nowhere else to turn, or if you think you've run out of options, don't panic.
📍Find the location nearest you: https://t.co/jC5HreDqyk pic.twitter.com/YAxEUb4zRe
— NJ Department of Children and Families (@NJDCF) May 19, 2021
It’s important to remember that there are options. As a 14-year-old, it’s likely that she was unaware of what to do about the situation and ended up making a really bad mistake.
Check out the full video below showing the teenager leaving her baby with the restaurant customer.
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