Baby allegedly abandoned by mom survived 3 days in plastic bag, police say

ELMIRA, N.Y. — A 17-year-old Pennsylvania mother is under arrest and facing an attempted murder charge after her 8- to 16-month-old baby girl reportedly was found in a plastic bag Tuesday in Elmira, New York.

At first, reports said the baby may have been abandoned for hours, but that soon changed to 24 hours and, finally, to three days.

According to WENY, The Associated Press and the Daily Mail, police said Harriette Hoyt of Sayre, Pennsylvania, abandoned the baby in a bag near some bushes over the weekend. While two neighbors said they thought that the noises they were hearing was coming from an animal in distress. They looked into it and are now being hailed as heroes.

"My sister [Kayla] came out off the porch and went to the side to the backyard of my neighbor's house with a stick, thinking it was a dog," Karen Seals told WENY. "Her legs were just dangling in the bag, her head was in the bag, her whole head was covered all the way down."

“I was going to go poke it to see what it was. I dropped that stick, looked down. I dropped it so fast, I walked up and I seen my baby – I’m calling it my baby – the baby, a little girl,” Kayla Seals added.

“You ain’t got no right to do that to that baby,” Karen Seals said. “Ain’t no right. And it really hurt my feelings. And I ain’t got no kids, and you do that to a child, Lord.”

Elmira Police Sgt. William Solt said the Seals sisters are "heroes."

“They are truly heroes in this incident,” he said. “The good Samaritans who found the child brought it inside, tried washing it up and immediately called 911. They rendered as much first aid as possible until emergency responders could arrive on scene. The child was immediately transferred to a local hospital and is currently in stable condition.”

While the baby is expected to make a full recovery, the mother faces a second-degree felony attempted murder charge.

Hoyt was arraigned Tuesday.

Cox Media Group