Woman recounts rescuing crying newborn from trash dumpster: 'It broke me'

UPDATE, 10/1/25: Police have arrested a suspect, Neli Dinora Rivera Felipe, who is believed to have abandoned the newborn baby girl on September 19. The baby is estimated to have been inside the dumpster for approximately 16 hours before she was rescued. Felipe told police she threw the newborn into the dumpster because she thought the baby was lifeless.

9/25/25: An infant has been dubbed a "miracle angel" after she was rescued from a dumpster behind an apartment complex in Austin, Texas, on September 20.

Key Takeaways:

• An infant was rescued from a Texas dumpster in Austin, Texas, after neighbors heard her cries.

• The baby appeared to be less than a day old, and still had her umbilical cord attached. She was covered in dirt and trash.

• She is recovering in a local hospital.

• The woman who pulled the baby from the dumpster said seeing the baby in that condition "broke her."

The Details:

The Austin Police Department confirmed to KVUE that the newborn girl was found in the dumpster at 8600 N Lamar Blvd. on Saturday afternoon.

Perry Lewis and Lerrssy Frausto heard cries from their apartment complex dumpster and ran to find the infant thrown in the dumpster, covered in dirt and trash.

Frausto tearfully described finding the helpless infant and starting chest compressions until help arrived.

"I ran out here with no shoes... And I just started doing compressions on the baby's chest just due to the fact that she looked like she was losing life. And we called EMS, firefighters, the cops, and they arrived. They took her..." she said, speculating that the baby girl looked as if she had been born that same day.

"You know, there's people out here that literally can't have kids that wish they could, and you're dumping kids in the trash can," Fausto said, appalled. "I mean... it's not illegal to take your child to a fire station and drop them off. It's not. I mean, you could have knocked on someone's door, like anything. But throwing the baby in the trash is just insane." She went on:

Just seeing her covered in blood like that and dirt and trash, like she just wasn't nothing, hurt me. The way that she was found in the trash can – upside down, with her head facing the trash can – hurt me. Me trying to open up her eye, and I couldn't open her eye. Just broke me. Like I didn't know what to do. I'm like, is she dying on me?

Like her other eye just started rolling to the back of her head. And I'm just like, 'please stay with me.' I'm hitting her chest just, like, talking to her. And I think when she started hearing it was a mother's voice, or a female's voice, that... she felt that... or heard that and she knew she was safe at that point.... And I felt like... she was just holding on because she knew she still had potential in this life....

It's a miracle. It's a blessing. I just thank God for giving that baby the chance to be able to see what life is about.

FULL INTERVIEW: Woman finds newborn infant in dumpster during Texas summer

Lewis said it was the baby's cries that led them to the dumpster.

"She saved herself. She saved herself, you know what I mean? She cried. She has a God-given voice. She cried up out of that dumpster. About 40, 50 feet away, man, my neighbor heard her," he said.

Frausto noted that the baby still had her umbilical cord still attached, and appeared to have been born that day. She's calling the baby girl a miracle.

"She's a miracle from God and an angel from the skies," Frausto said.

Authorities took the baby to Dell Children's Hospital, where she is still being held for observation. Police are also working to locate her parents.

The Bottom Line:

Austin PD Officer Aaron Townsend reminded the public that Texas has laws designed to help curtail senseless infant abandonments like this one. Things could have turned out very differently for this little girl, had she not been able to cry loudly enough to be heard.

"There's an option out there. It's called the Safe Haven Law, where you can drop off a newborn infant at a fire station, EMS, police station, no questions asked," he said.

The state's safe haven law, or Baby Moses law, allows parents who feel unable to care for their babies to surrender them, provided they are in good condition and 60 days old or younger.

According to the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, an infant surrender can happen at "any hospital, fire station, or emergency medical services (EMS) station, or the infant may be placed in a newborn safety device located inside the designated emergency infant care (DEIC) provider facility."