{"id":333181,"date":"2025-06-23T10:44:45","date_gmt":"2025-06-23T15:44:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=333181"},"modified":"2025-06-23T09:40:04","modified_gmt":"2025-06-23T14:40:04","slug":"full-circle-officer-reunites-abandoned-baby","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/full-circle-officer-reunites-abandoned-baby\/","title":{"rendered":"Full Circle: Officer reunites with abandoned baby he helped 25 years ago"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A retired police lieutenant reunited with the abandoned baby boy he helped more than two decades ago \u2014 and that baby boy has grown up to become a police officer himself.<\/p>\n

CBS shared<\/a> the emotional story about ‘Baby Boy Doe’ and his reunion with retired South Bend Police Lieutenant Gene Eyster just months after Eyster’s only son unexpectedly died.<\/p>\n

Key Takeaways:<\/h2>\n
    \n
  • A baby boy who was abandoned in a the hallway of an apartment complex was helped by a police officer, and today is a police officer himself.<\/li>\n
  • The two officers reunited, and this came at a time when the older officer had suffered the loss of a son — making the reunion even more meaningful for him.<\/li>\n
  • Baby Safe Haven laws exist in every state to offer desperate parents an option to anonymously and safely surrender that child up to a certain time period after birth; that child can then be placed with an adoptive family. Adoption laws differ by state.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    The Details:<\/h2>\n

    Twenty-five years ago, Lieutenant Eyster received a call that changed his life. “That was one of the strangest calls I think I’ve ever had: ‘We have found a baby in a box,'” he told CBS News. “You always wonder what happened.”<\/p>\n

    It was just days before Christmas on December 22, 2000, when a newborn baby boy was found abandoned in a common hallway of an apartment complex in South Bend, Indiana. He was swaddled in blankets inside a cardboard box, and Eyster brought him to the hospital.<\/p>\n

    Later, Eyster said he returned to the hospital “with a teddy bear” to “let everyone that walked past know that he was cared about.”<\/p>\n

    \u00a0