‘It’s a win-win’
Fire station adds safe alternative for surrendering a baby
Tucked away in a dark quiet area of the living quarters of the Conway Fire Department’s Central Fire Station is access to a medical bassinet that is ready to hold a surrendered baby.
The Safe Haven Baby Box is a project that Conway firefighter Capt. Ty Ledbetter spearheaded. He launched an online community fundraiser, which paid for the $10,000 box at the downtown station, 1401 Caldwell St. The box was blessed and became operational in July.
It was an idea that Ledbetter, a father of four, had thought about for years.
“You see people, all across the country, where they find these abandoned babies in a parking lot,” Ledbetter said in an earlier interview. “It’s always been kind of a vision of mine to get one of these boxes here. We knew [the Fire Department] was a safehaven drop spot, but how often does the public know that?”
The Safe Haven Law was enacted in 2001 in Arkansas, allowing mothers to anonymously and legally surrender a baby 30 days old or younger at any hospital emergency room or law-enforcement agency. The law was amended in 2019 to include manned fire stations.
“That’s great in theory, and it happens, but a lot of these mothers, whether it be shame or whatever, they don’t want to do that — hand that baby face to face to somebody,” Ledbetter said.
Now they don’t have to.
“It’s really exciting to know that these mothers and fathers have this opportunity now, whereas they didn’t. … Before, they’ve taken these drastic measures, and now we have a safe alternative to surrender a baby.”
Safe Haven Baby Boxes’ stated mission is to prevent illegal abandonment of newborns. The organization, based in Indiana, offers a 24-hour hotline for mothers in crisis: (866) 99BABY1.
The nonprofit Safe Haven Baby Box organization’s founder and CEO, Monica Kelsey of Indiana, came to Conway for the blessing of the box. Kelsey told her story as she stood in front of Central Station.
“To tell you a little bit about why I’m so passionate about Safe Haven Baby Boxes, I have to take you back a little ways to August of 1972, when a 17-year-old girl was brutally attacked and raped and left on the side of the road,” Kelsey said.
The teenager was “strong enough to press charges,” and her rapist was arrested and charged. “When her life was finally getting back to normal, she finds out she’s pregnant. In April 1973, she gave birth and abandoned her child two hours after she was born, and that child was me,” Kelsey said.
“I am still a human being, and I still have value. My life isn’t worth less simply because of the way I came to be.”
Kelsey said she vowed to protect mothers and babies by offering them an anonymous way to surrender a baby.
The Safe Haven Baby Box offers “no shame, no blame and no names — and that is an exciting thing for women in Conway, Arkansas, today,” Kelsey said.
She conferred about the location of the Conway baby box with Conway Fire Chief Mike Winter, Ledbetter and Greg Hiegel, owner of Hiegel Building Solutions, who donated the cost of installing the box.
Winter said the Conway Historic District Commission had to approve the change to the building, but installation only required a window to be removed.
The location for the box — on the west side of the building facing a parking lot — was chosen for a little more privacy and ease of access. The box is accessed by an opening on the exterior of the building, and the door locks after the baby is placed in the bassinet inside the building.
Ledbetter described what happens next.
“It’s climate-controlled, alarmed, so that any time the door shuts on that box, a silent alarm goes off inside the fire station, and it goes to 911 dispatch,” he said. “The first available unit is called. If everybody is gone from Central, it lets them know a ‘medical’ is going on,” Ledbetter said.
Firefighters will respond “just like to a car wreck or heart attack, sirens on,” he said.
The baby will be examined, then taken to Conway Regional Medical Center, Baptist Health Medical Center-Conway, Arkansas Children’s Hospital, “whatever that paramedic … decides is most appropriate.”
Training was done in-house, Ledbetter said, and Winter said it was “very seamless.”
Ledbetter said he learned something that surprised him.
“[The mothers are] putting these babies in that were born minutes, hours ago — not born 29 days ago. That was something eye-opening to me; they may have the umbilical cord attached to the placenta.
“It’s a win-win, no matter what side of the fence you’re on as far as abortion. It’s hard to argue with this,” Ledbetter said.
Ledbetter, a captain in the Fire Department’s Emergency Medical Services Division, said he talked to Winter last year about his longtime desire to get a baby box.
Winter was immediately onboard with the idea.
“I supported this measure back before it went to the state Legislature, where they changed the laws where a fire station could be considered a safe haven for a baby,” Winter said, adding that he gave a written endorsement for the change in state law.
He said he knows the grim alternative to a baby being safely surrendered.
“In our profession, we’ve had to respond to situations where there wasn’t a baby box, you know. Those are heart-wrenching — where somebody puts a baby in a dumpster,” he said in an earlier interview.
Winter said he was a firefighter on duty 22 years ago when an infant was found in a dumpster in Conway.
The Safe Haven Baby Box opens into a room with no lights, windows with shades and recliners for the firefighters. It’s an area for firefighters to “get a mental break,” Winter said.
Ledbetter emphasized that no city funds were used for the baby-box project.
“This box was 100 percent funded by our local community, and it was done in a matter of days,” he said.
Winter said the fundraising goal was met so quickly that “we had to pick up our efforts; we thought we had two or three months. The public was tremendous,” he said.
Mayor Bart Castleberry said during the blessing and dedication that the baby box “will impact the lives of some little ones who are too little to speak for themselves, and it’ll also have a positive impact on the lives of some young mothers.”
Conway’s is the fifth Safe Haven Baby Box in Arkansas, all at fire stations. The first to be installed is in Benton, and the others are in Jonesboro, Rogers and Springdale. Conway’s is the 75th baby box in the nation, Kelsey said, and the most recent surrender was about a month ago in Indiana, she said.
On a recent day in the station, the living quarters were empty. A recliner sits in front of the baby box. The words “Saving Babies One Box at a Time” are printed on the outside of the see-through box.
Ledbetter and Winter hold two hopes about the Safe Haven Baby Box — that it never needs to be used, but that women know they have the option.
“I am tickled to death that we have a box and that it’s installed and ready to go,” Winter said. “I hope it’s used, as opposed to other means, but it’s one of those things — we hope it is never needed. But we’re so thankful that it’s there.”