Dog discovers abandoned baby on side of a road

A Michigan man was walking his dog near his home in the Diamond Lake area on Monday morning when he stumbled upon an abandoned newborn baby in some bushes on the side of the dirt road.

Jeffrey Kopp recalled that his dog, Bobby, seemed intent on dragging him along that route.

"I was taking my dog for a walk and he went to pull me toward some bushes," Kopp told WZZM. "I went to see what he was pulling towards and there was a baby in the bushes. At first I thought it was a rock. But it was a newborn. The umbilical cord was still hooked to it."

The baby was lying on her side in the fetal position, covered in leaves. She was less than six hours old.

"Then it moved," he said. "That's when I started yelling."

He shouted at a neighbour to call 911, then called his wife and daughter for help.

"He hollered for myself and my mother to get a blanket or a towel because he just found a baby," Kopp’s daughter, Kathleen Neal, told WOOD TV8.

When Neal picked up the baby, the baby started to cry.

"It was a relief to me because I knew she was alive," she said.

An ambulance arrived soon after and took the newborn, who had some bumps and bruises, to Gerber Memorial Hospital in Fremont.

Later that day, authorities were able to identify the infant's mother, a 14-year-old girl who lives on the street where the baby was found. She was also taken to the hospital.

Both mother and baby are in good condition.

The mother is not currently in custody. It is unclear whether she will face any charges.

"I don't know her personally, but I know who she is," Neal told WZZM. "Maybe she just was scared and didn't know what to do or how to handle it."

Michigan has a "safe haven" law that allows an individual to anonymously surrender a baby within 72 hours of birth to an emergency service provider, making this case especially puzzling.

"I know she's a young girl, but she's not stupid, so it really makes me wonder why," Neal said of the baby’s mother. "It's just really hard to believe. It's really hard to believe that someone would do that."

Sandra Recker, who helped create the Safe Delivery of Newborns Act in 2001, told WOOD TV8 that not enough teens are aware of this law.

Kopp considered his discovery of the baby an act of God.

"I feel that we were led to that place, OK, because it was out of the ordinary for me to come in this direction," Kopp said. "I tend to think it was God led us this way, that all life is precious to Him."

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