Ghanaian woman charged with felony in the US for abandoning her newborn in the toilet

A Ghanaian woman, Emmanuella Osei, gave birth to a baby boy and then left the newborn partially submerged in a toilet at her Lancaster County workplace, according to the district attorney’s office.

New reports reveals that Osei, 23, of Reading, has now been charged with felony for endangering the welfare of a child regarding the incident that happened on Monday, January 14, 2019.

Police say Osei works for Greater Hearts Human Services as a care assistant and was working at a unit in an apartment complex when the incident happened.

The district attorney’s office says Osei called her supervisor multiple times to say she felt ill. She asked for someone to relieve her because she could not leave the patients alone. She had eventually called her supervisor from a toilet around 10:20pm and asked the supervisor to call 911.

A responding officer found her in the bathroom with the door partially open. A large amount of blood and what appeared to be an umbilical cord were on the floor. The officer then pulled Osei from the toilet and found the child, partially submerged in the water.

Investigators believe the child had been in the water for about 10 to 15 minutes. He was cold to the touch, blue, unresponsive and not breathing, so the officer and medics performed CPR and likely saved his life, officials said.

The baby was taken to a hospital where he remains on a ventilator, in critical but stable condition. The extent of his injuries are, however, not known.