NASSAU, BAHAMAS — Daron Darling was conducting a routine maintenance check on a nearby building when he heard the soft cries of what he thought was a cat.
But when he went to check on the noise, Darling was shocked to find a newborn baby wrapped in a blanket and left underneath old stairs.
Police reported late Saturday afternoon that the newborn was discovered in an abandoned building off East Street shortly after 11am.
An anonymous caller reportedly told police that construction workers found the child wrapped in a blanket while at the Church of the Nazarene.
Darling, who runs a maintenance company, said he was that anonymous caller.
“I came to do an assessment on this home in the back of us and I heard ruffling near the back area,” he told Eyewitness News.
“I hear like a cat sound a few minutes after and then moments later, I heard crying again.”
Darling, a father of one, said when he went to figure out where the noise was coming from, he saw the baby on the floor.
He said immediately after realizing it was a child, he called police and emergency services.
He noted that he could not tell what condition the child was in because he and others who were there at the time were careful not to touch the baby.
“No one else touched it once we were aware that that’s what it was,” he said.
“I just had my first son this year, so it was very, very difficult to just imagine who would do something like that.
“Dogs wouldn’t even be left on the side of the road without someone [noticing], particularly a child.
“It’s very difficult to accept, very difficult to fathom.
“It could have been a few moments later, it could have taken its last breath.
“God was with the whole situation in allowing me to be there and witness [it].”
Darling noted that others who came after he discovered the baby said they had passed the area around that time, but didn’t see or hear anything.
“It’s just God and his favor that allow us to come here and find this baby boy,” he said.
Police are still searching for the mother of the child, though the Department of Social Services has taken action to make the baby a ward of the state.
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