A 17-year-old girl has been charged with attempted murder after she allegedly left her baby in a trash bag outside a home for more than three days, New York authorities said.
Two sisters sitting on their porch on Tuesday afternoon initially thought they heard an animal rustling around behind their neighbor’s house and went to investigate the “suspicious noise,” the Elmira Police Department said in a statement.
“I ran up and I saw the little legs dangling out of the bag,” Kayla Seals told WETM. “So I said, ‘You guys, it’s a baby.'”
Seals said she then tore open the white trash bag and saw an 8-month-old baby girl, whose head was toward the bottom of the bag. She was barely breathing, covered in waste, and her eyes were closed, the woman said.
In shock, Seals immediately took the baby inside to clean her off and give her some water.
“She wasn’t breathing, but she opened her mouth for me and I dropped some water in there and she started gasping for air after I did that. Her eyes weren’t opening so I cleaned her eyes, so eyes would open up to me and I just spoke to her ‘C’mon baby, c’mon baby, c’mon sweetness,'” Seals told the station.
The baby is now in stable condition at a hospital, which Elmira Police Sgt. Bill Solt says is a “miracle” after she spent about 72 hours wrapped in plastic in the heat of August.
Hoyt left the baby near bushes in a backyard last weekend, the Elmira Star-Gazette reported.
“She’s doing a lot better but they are still monitoring her,” Elmira Police Officer Tom Marsh told BuzzFeed News on Thursday.
The baby’s mother, Harriette Hoyt, has been charged with attempted murder and is being held at Chemung County Jail in lieu of $250,000 bail, according to the district attorney’s office.
The 17-year-old from Sayre, Pennsylvania, is being charged as an adult, but is eligible for youthful offender status, Solt said.
If convicted of the felony attempted murder charge as an adult, Hoyt could be sentenced to up to 25 years in prison.