FORT LAUDERDALE, FLA. (WSVN) - Police have arrested a woman after her newborn daughter was found in a trash can at Broward Health Medical Center in Fort Lauderdale.
According to the Sun-Sentinel, 25-year-old Rubi Ramirez went to the hospital complaining of abdominal pain. While at the hospital, Ramirez’s mother found her daughter bleeding while she was in an emergency room restroom and called nurses, police said.
The newspaper said that, according to Fort Lauderdale Police, Ramirez told a doctor she wasn’t pregnant when they asked. However, the doctor searched the bathroom and found a newborn baby in the trash, underneath a pile of bloodied paper towels. The child was alive and breathing.
While being interviewed by police, Ramirez initially claimed she didn’t know she was pregnant and that the infant “fell” in the trash. She told officers that she notified hospital personnel about the newborn being inside the bin. However, Ramirez later confessed to putting the child in the trash, and agreed with police that abandoning her in the plastic-lined can would have resulted in her death, the Sun-Sentinel reported.
The child is currently in foster care while the Florida Department of Children and Families investigates.
“We believe that there are some mental health issues involved in this case,” Ramirez’s attorney told the Sun-Sentinel. “We are going to investigate further and as the facts develop, we believe it will be shown that Ms. Ramirez is the victim in this case.”
Ramirez has been hospitalized since she was taken into custody. She currently faces charges of child abuse without great bodily harm and desertion of a child.
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