‘We long to know if bus-stop baby is well and happy’
IT HAS been a year since a tiny baby girl was found abandoned in a bus shelter in the seaside town of Towyn.
But for the teenager who found her, it still feels like yesterday.
Talitha Beales, 19, initially thought the baby at the side of the road was dead.
She “screamed hysterically” at the sight of the blood-covered infant on the concrete floor of a bus shelter near the Magpie and Stump pub.
But as the baby marks her first birthday, little detail is known about her, apart from the fact she was put into foster care and given a home in Conwy county after appeals to trace her mother proved unsuccessful.
Talitha told the Daily Post she’d love to know how she is doing after admitting she and her family were told nothing about the child’s progress after she was rushed to hospital in a critical condition.
The 19-year-old said: “After the baby was taken away in the ambulance, we never saw her again.
“We were desperate for information about how she was doing. We just wanted to know she was OK.
“My dad really wanted to go in and see her, even just to give her a teddy, but we weren’t allowed.
“I’d love to know her first name and that she’s in a happy home. “I do think about her a lot. “I’m just glad we found her when we did because she came very close to dying.”
Talitha was being driven home to Stoke-on-Trent after spending time in north Wales with her dad, Talitha Beales, left, her dad Daniel Braxton and partner Toni Pickford rushed to help after seeing a baby girl in a bus stop The baby found at the bus stop Daniel Braxton, when she made the grim discovery.
She said: “I remember every detail about the day like it was yesterday.
“It’s something I will never forget.
“As Dad drove past the bus stop, I saw the baby covered in blood, it still had the umbilical cord attached and I thought it was dead.
“I told my dad to stop the car, he thought it was a prank and carried on, but I started screaming my head off hysterically until he stopped and turned back.
“I stayed in the car because I didn’t want to look. My dad was reluctant at first, he thought it was a doll or a sick joke until he realised it was a real baby.
“She was cold and lifeless and my dad ran to get a dressing-gown from the car to wrap around her after calling for help.
“The ambulance and police came and taped the area off.
“We have always wondered about her ever since.”
Speaking to the Daily Post at the time, Daniel said: “She (the baby) was a fair size, I’d say probably around the 7lb mark.
“She was not tiny, but definitely newborn as she still had the umbilical cord on.
“I gave her a few hard rubs on her chest to see if there was any life in her, and at that point she gave a big gasp and opened her eyes.”
He added: “As I waited for the ambulance I was just cuddling her, telling her everything was going to be all right. Not that she could understand me, but I just thought she needed to hear a comforting voice.”
It is understood the baby girl was left in the bus stop some time between 6am and 7.15am that morning.
A cordon was put in place once police and ambulance crews arrived and forensics officers dusted the bus shelter down while a makeshift interview room was set up close to the scene.
A police search helicopter was also scrambled to scour the surrounding area.
A few months later the hunt for the baby’s mother came to a close after what was described as a “painstaking and meticulous investigation”.
Police and social workers from Conwy council then concentrated their efforts on planning for the baby’s future with a new family.