A newborn baby has been found alive in a dumpster on the Claflin University campus in South Carolina.
Police are charging his 19-year-old mother with the attempted murder of the baby boy.
The Claflin student, Amber Brianna Fulton, of Kingstree, has also been charged with illegal contact towards a child.
Less than 5 hours old, the baby boy was discovered in the trash by custodians at around 8.55am on Wednesday.
The Orangeburg Department of Public Safety said that university employees were disposing of trash collected from a dormitory when they heard the sound of a baby crying coming from the dumpster on Goff Avenue.
They looked into the bin and found the newborn stuffed inside a trash bag. The baby was not wearing any clothes or a diaper.
The custodians opened the plastic sack so the child, a full term baby boy weighing 5 lbs 7 ounces, could draw a breath.
The Claflin staffers immediately called campus security and called for medical help.
A police report says that when investigators tracked down Amber Fulton, the 19-year-old allegedly admitted to giving birth in secret in a dormitory bathroom at around 4am on Wednesday.
The teen mom reportedly used a pair of scissors to cut the umbilical cord and wiped the newborn with some tissues.
Fulton’s arrest warrant says that after delivering the boy, the student placed him in a plastic bag, then stuffed it into a larger black trash bag, which she tied with a loose knot, and then dumped the bundle containing her son into the dumpster behind the Claflin dining room.
When interviewed by police, Fulton explained she was trying to hide her pregnancy from her family.
The teenage mother was taken to the Regional Medical Center in Orangeburg for evaluation. Police say both Fulton and her son are in good condition.
Under South Carolina’s Daniels’ Law, infants up to 60 days old may be legally abandoned at a safe heaven, such a fire station, a police station or a hospital, no questions asked.