A little boy surrendered to a fire station in Louisville, Kentucky, as a newborn has been adopted after more than 500 days in foster care.
In May of 2022, a woman surrendered Samuel, handing him to firefighters directly at the station on River Park Drive in west Louisville, WDRB reported.
“We were with Samuel from the very beginning. It was early morning, close to shift change, when his mother rang the doorbell here,” said Lt. Col. Bobby Cooper, assistant chief with Louisville Fire.
Soon after his surrender, Louisville residents Brittany and Chris Tyler heard about him through a news article.
“[T]hat night I prayed that we would get the call because I knew he would go to a foster family,” Brittany Tyler told the outlet.
Brittany and Chris are seasoned foster parents, having fostered a total of 17 children over time, according to the report. They have also adopted three children, including Samuel, who came to live with them soon after his surrender when he was only a few days old.
Brittany said that when she received a call about fostering the infant surrendered at the fire station, she knew she wanted to name him Samuel.
“I hung up and I said, ‘his name is Samuel. It can’t be anything else,'” she said. “Because I prayed for him.”
“In the book of 1 Samuel, Hannah prays to God that she would be able to have a son and He granted what she had asked to have and so she named him Samuel. So, that’s why we named him Samuel,” Chris Tyler added.
Samuel was placed inside a shoebox when he was taken to firefighters, which Samuel’s parents have held onto.
“… just included a little note with it saying that she loved him and handed him over to the firemen,” said Chris Tyler.
“It’s hard to imagine he fit in this box. He’s so big now,” Brittany Tyler said.
Samuel is almost two years old now and is “hilarious,” and “always happy, laughing, running around,” Brittany Tyler said.
Chris Tyler said he and his wife have been able to meet other families that have adopted in similar ways through Safe Haven Baby Boxes, an organization that seeks to prevent the illegal abandonment of newborns. The organization offers a 24-hour crisis hotline for mothers, as well as baby boxes, which are temperature-controlled incubators that are often built into outside exterior walls of fire stations, police stations, and hospitals and can be accessed from inside. At-risk mothers can safely and legally place their babies inside the box up to a certain point after birth depending on state law, and the outside door locks. Then, they have time to get away before an alarm goes off, alerting first responders inside, and the baby is then quickly removed and sent to a hospital for a wellness check. From there the baby is usually placed into state custody and often quickly adopted.
The fire station Samuel was surrendered to is still a part of his life — he celebrated his first birthday there, according to the report.
“With this it’s kind of unique, it’s not a structure fire, it’s not a car wreck, it’s not a gun shot, it’s not something that we see often but our firefighters are completely prepared for it,” Cooper said. “And there aren’t many things more vulnerable than a brand newborn baby, which Samuel was at that time and we’re incredibly proud of our members for the work that they did to get him to where he is today.”
Cooper added that it is not the role of the fire department to judge mothers who surrender their babies.
“We don’t ask people why they were in the car wreck when we’re on an emergency incident. We don’t ask people why their house caught on fire when we’re fighting that fire. We don’t ask somebody why they may be in any medical emergency. When people don’t know what else to do, they call the fire department,” he said. “So clearly, a mother in a crisis situation isn’t sure what to do and we’re another option for her. Where she can come to a fire station, whether it’s here in Louisville or any other states that have the Safe Haven baby laws, she can come to a fire station and she can surrender that baby.”
The Tyler family said that while they will likely never meet Samuel’s birth mother, they “love her and cherish her and thank God for her for what she did for Sam.”
The fire station Samuel was surrendered to does not have a Safe Haven Baby Box, although there are two stations in the area, including Okolona and Pleasure Ridge Park, that haven them. Cooper said Louisville Fire has plans to install two Baby Boxes in 2024.
“Thirty-seven infants have been placed in a baby box since 2017, and over 130 surrenders have happened through calls to the National Safe Haven Baby Box Hotline, 1-866-99BABY1, which is available all day every day. The hotline provides counseling services to parents who may be unable or unwilling to care for their newborn,” according to the report.