WEST COVINA >> Police arrested a woman Monday after she gave birth and abandoned her baby in a toilet at a Subway, authorities said.
At about 8:34 a.m., a customer saw a bleeding woman leave the bathroom in the sandwich shop located at 2540 S. Azusa Ave., police said. As they followed the blood trail to the bathroom, they heard the cry of a newborn and then saw an umbilical cord hanging out of the toilet, said West Covina police spokesman Rudy Lopez.
“The baby was in the toilet,” Lopez said.
Subway employees were alerted to the situation and called 9-1-1 immediately.
“We tried to keep her in and she just walked out,” a female employee told a dispatcher. “There’s a crying baby in the restroom.”
• Listen to audio of the 9-1-1 call
Paramedics arrived on scene and rushed the baby to the neonatal intensive care unit at Queen of the Valley Hospital, police said. The baby was in critical condition.
Lopez said the baby’s head was not submerged in toilet water but that authorities were concerned about how long the baby was in the toilet and the temperature of the water.
Officers quickly found the woman nearby behind the Pep Boys Auto Parts & Service shop on Amar Road, just east of Azusa, Lopez said.
The woman, identified as 37-year-old Mary Grace Trinidad, was taken to a hospital for treatment, he said. She was expected to be booked on suspicion of child abandonment, attempted murder and an outstanding narcotics-related warrant.
Lopez said Trinidad is a known local transient to businesses in the neighborhood.
“I’ve done this for 36 years. I thought I had seen everything,” Lopez said. “I have no words to describe how I’m feeling about this.”
Lopez said it appeared that the baby, a boy, was born full-term.
Under California’s “Safe Surrender” law, new mothers can turn over their babies at any fire station or hospital, no questions asked, within the first 72 hours of birth, so long as the child shows no signs of abuse.
This article has been updated from an earlier version to correct Trinidad’s age. She is 37.
