In January of this year, a firefighter in Ocala, Florida, responded to an alarm at 2 a.m. The sound was coming from the department’s Safe Haven Baby Box, a device that allows someone to anonymously, safely, and legally surrender a child without answering any questions.
“To be honest, I thought it was a false alarm,” the firefighter, who wishes to remain anonymous, tells TODAY.com.
When he opened the box, a healthy baby girl was wrapped in a pink blanket—she was the department’s first surrendered newborn since the box was installed in 2020. He says he knew he loved her instantly, and describes the moment in the most emotionally beautiful way.
“She had a little bottle with her and she was just chilling,” he recalls. “I picked her up and held her. We locked eyes, and that was it. I’ve loved her ever since that moment.”
What is a Safe Haven Baby Box?
Beginning in the late ’90s, Safe Haven laws started being implemented across the United States. These laws decriminalize the act of leaving unharmed infants as wards of the state. Today, each of the 50 states has Safe Haven laws in place.
The baby boxes, typically found at fire stations, EMS locations, and hospitals, are devices made with the intent of saving infants surrendered under each state’s safe haven statutes. The hope is that these boxes will help prevent tragedies like finding abandoned newborn bodies in dumpsters or abandoned outdoors.
The founder of the Safe Haven Baby Box, Monica Kelsey, always knew she was adopted. When she was 37 years old, she learned that she was conceived during a rape and was abandoned as an infant. Her personal story inspired her to advocate for infants in similar situations. According to the Safe Haven Baby Box organization website, Kelsey hopes to one day eliminate illegal infant abandonment across the U.S. and around the world. She’s also a U.S. Navy Veteran, a former firefighter and medic.
According to shbb.org, 15 babies have been surrendered inside Safe Haven Baby Boxes since the first was installed in 2016. Three other babies have been surrendered at fire stations with Safe Haven Baby Boxes. There have been over 100 surrenders nationwide resulting from calls to the Safe Haven Baby Boxes national hotline.
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The firefighter tells TODAY that he and his wife had been trying to have a baby for more than a decade. He knew right away that he wanted to inquire about adopting the baby girl.
At the hospital, the firefighter, who is also a paramedic, wrote a note and left it with the infant, whom he later named Zoey.
“I explained that my wife and I had been trying for 10 years to have a baby. I told them we’d completed all of our classes in the state of Florida and were registered to adopt,” he says. “All we needed was a child.”
He said his wife immediately began crying when he called her and told her about the baby.
“I was like, ‘Don’t get too excited yet,’” he says. “My biggest fear was that the note I wrote wouldn’t stay with Zoey and she’d be gone. It was a very stressful few days.”
Just two days after he responded to the alarm at his fire department, baby Zoey was home with the firefighter and his wife—her new parents. The couple formally adopted Zoey in April.
“The way I found her… This was God helping us out,” he says. He wants Zoey’s biological mother to feel some closure about her decision to use the Safe Haven Baby Box.
“We want her to know that her child is taken care of and that she’s loved beyond words.”
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