THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, February 22, 1995 TAG: 9502220444
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MATTHEW BOWERS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: PORTSMOUTH LENGTH: Medium: 96 lines
The baby's body was still warm.
In this cold, cavernous building, this noisy, smelly warehouse of refuse, the baby was still warm. Warm and pretty and fat, said Ida M. Carter: ``A good 6, 7 pounds.''
Carter was one of several recyclers plucking aluminum cans from trash on a conveyor belt at the SPSA trash-to-steam plant the morning of Feb. 13. Reaching for a shiny can, she spotted two small feet, crossed over each other.
About the same time, she touched something soft and yielding in the trash. A baby's leg.
``The woman next to me, she said: `Oh, my God!' '' said Carter, a religious woman. ``I said: `Jesus! It's a baby!' ''
It was the body of a newborn, a black girl. An autopsy would show she had been born alive.
But Portsmouth police have no clues to the identity of the girl or her parents. The garbage that Carter and her co-workers - all with Sunbelt Temporaries and Contract Services - pick through for cans comes to the Refuse Derived Fuel Plant from four cities.
The trash moves quickly past the workers. Ernest L. White, two people down from Carter, saw the baby, too. ``At first, I thought it was a toy,'' he said. ``Until I saw the navel cord.''
The worker between them ran away in shock. Carter yelled to White to stop the line. White already was reaching for the orange emergency cord over the conveyor.
But before the belt stopped, the baby had dropped 3 feet to the next line, the one leading to the shredder that churns the garbage into burnable fuel for the Norfolk Naval Shipyard next door.
White jumped to a nearby phone to call the next line's operator. Stop the line, he yelled into it. He knew he had about 30 seconds before the baby's body would reach the shredder.
The conveyor finally stopped. The little girl was about halfway to the shredder.
Workers cleared the trash off the baby's face and body. Officials from the plant - run by the Southeastern Public Service Authority - and police were summoned. Carter, a 49-year-old mother of four and grandmother of 10, was led from the area in tears and later conferred with a counselor brought in from Maryview Medical Center.
``Everybody was in shock,'' said White, 53, who has an 8-year-old son. ``It really makes you think about your kid.''
``It really got to me,'' Carter said. ``Seeing that trash in the baby's face. . . . I was saying: `Oh, Lord, why did somebody do that to that baby?' ''
Carter and her co-workers decided they didn't want anyone to forget the girl.
First, they agreed with Carter's idea to name her ``Angel Valentine'' because she was found the day before Valentine's Day and ``because we know she is a real angel,'' Carter said. ``She's human. She belongs to somebody.''
Everyone refers to her as ``Baby Angel.''
Then their boss, Derrick B. Ross, asked his boss if they could place a pink bow on the dirty beige machinery where the girl was found. It was done. Workers also are wearing pink ribbons pinned to their heavy jackets. They'll keep up their quiet commemoration until the end of the month.
``Just basically to let someone know that we care about the baby,'' Ross said. ``They could've done anything with that baby other than throw it in the trash.''
After work on Feb. 13, White went home and hugged his son. On Sunday, Carter went to her minister-brother's Sweet Liberty Baptist Church in Norfolk to pray for the baby and her unknown parents.
``You know, I can see big people,'' Carter said. ``But she's just a baby. She's special to me. I don't know who the mother was. I don't even know who the baby was. But she's special to me.''
The real world didn't give the workers much of a break. By early afternoon, the trash line was running again at the plant, and there were more cans to pick out for recycling.
``I went back to work,'' Carter said, ``But I didn't pick as many cans.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
CHRISTOPHER REDDICK/Staff
Workers at the Southeastern Public Service Authority's Refuse
Derived Fuel Plant are wearing pink ribbons in memory of their
``Angel.'' The body of an infant girl was found on their conveyor
belt Feb. 13.
Graphic
POLICE NEED YOUR HELP
Anyone with information about the identity of the baby or her
parents is asked to call Portsmouth police at 393-8536 or,
anonymously, Crime Line at 488-7777.
KEYWORDS: ABANDONED BABIES AND CHILDREN UNIDENTIFIED BODIES by CNB