An East Texas couple rescued a 9-month-old baby they found alive but abandoned in a shed in on Saturday.
Husband and wife John and Katharine McClain awoke in the early morning hours on September 24 to the sounds of a truck outside their home. The McClains reside in Livingston, a small town about 70 miles northeast of Houston.
When they looked in the direction of the sound, it appeared a truck was driving away.
Their security footage showed a shirtless man walking around their vehicles, checking all the doors. They would later discover their neighbor’s truck had been stolen.
Later in the morning, their dog began barking, and at about 9:30 a.m. the couple went out to check their shed.
“[Our] dog [Archie] was barking around the shed, and my husband went out there to see what was going on,” Katherine McClain, a veteran of the U.S. Army, said in an interview.
Her husband “opened the door, and the baby was lying on the floor. She had on a little dress and no diaper.” Katherine wrapped the baby, who was bruised and had a broken femur, in a towel as her husband called 911.
“I don’t have words to explain my reaction,” Katherine, 52, said. “[I had] never been more worried or scared for a baby in all my life.”
The mother of three added, “Just complete and utter sorrow for her, with the unknown of what had or may have happened to her.”
When Livingston police arrived on the scene, they let the McClains know their neighbor’s truck had been stolen. The truck was later discovered near the railroad tracks with the father of the abandoned baby behind the wheel.
He was charged and booked in the Polk County jail for abandoning and endangering a child. He mentioned another child to the police, but a second baby was never found.
As of Monday, the abandoned baby girl was reunited with its mother. Outpourings of gratitude for the McClains’ swift action spread on Facebook and online.
Katherine later updated her post to explain that they had learned only one child was abandoned on her property that night.