A Chicago firefighter faced a particularly emotional moment in his career when he rescued a newborn baby boy found in a dresser drawer in an alley on a hot summer day.
The baby was discovered by a woman when she was taking out her trash. She called 911, and Chicago firefighter Matthew Lang was one of the first on the scene. Matthew pulled the baby out to find he was wrapped in blankets with a rosary.
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The newborn was just days old, with his umbilical cord still attached. "We don’t know who put the baby there, but whoever did left a rosary," he told CBS 2 Chicago.
Matthew and other firefighters on the scene quickly began tending to the baby. "My mind went to ease as soon as I saw that baby moving and crying. It was almost surreal," he shared.
"I carried him into the ambulance when they arrived, and I didn't want to let him go. He did open his eyes and looked around the ambulance, smiled a little bit, holding onto our fingers. He looked me right in the eye. Those big brown eyes, I'll never forget it."
"Holding that little guy wrapped up in my arms, and I just kept thinking how familiar it was," he continued.
Matthew went home with the baby still on his mind. He shared his experience online, where he reminded people of the many safe places you can take a baby.
"If you have a baby you don't want, please do not dispose of it into the garbage," he wrote, in part.
"Please take the baby to a hospital, firehouse, police station or church."
Though all turned out well, things could have been very different if that woman hadn't gone out to that alley on that hot, humid day.
