Twins found near Worcester train tracks
Police: Infant boys ‘unharmed’
WORCESTER — A conductor and an engineer for the Providence-Worcester Railroad were working on the tracks that slice through Worcester early Wednesday when they made an alarming discovery: two infants in a stroller, abandoned less than a yard from the tracks.
“We were switching out some cars, and all of a sudden my engineer said, ‘I see a carriage with some babies in it,’ ” said the conductor, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “It was 2 feet off the tracks. We made sure they were OK and called 911. It was definitely shocking.”
Worcester police said they were dispatched just after midnight to a Cambridge Street address to do a welfare check.
The railroad employees found the twins, boys about 9 months old, abandoned in the area of Kansas Street, just over a half mile away from the Cambridge Street address, police said.
The employees called 911, and paramedics responded and took the infants to the hospital. They appeared to be unharmed, police said.
The babies have been identified and are in the custody of the state Department of Children and Families.
Worcester police detectives and DCF are investigating but would not say whether the infants’ parents have been found.
The incident stunned residents of the neighborhood.
“This is the saddest thing I’ve heard,” said Farid Atta, 27. “We’ve been living here 10 years, and I have never heard of anything like that happening. Whoever did this should be prosecuted to the most extent of the law.”
“It’s just irresponsible,” Aura Leon, a mother of three, said through a translator. “If the parents didn’t want to keep them, there are a lot of places they could have brought them instead. There’s no reason to leave them by some railroad tracks.”
Under Massachusetts law, a parent can apply for voluntary surrender of custody of a child for purposes of giving consent to adoption through DCF, or they may go to a private adoption agency.
“I have a 1-year-old daughter, and I can’t imagine doing anything like that,” the conductor who found the infants said. “I hope they can find someone who loves them and will take care of them.”