A Michigan man and his dog came across a strange sight while taking a walk on the side of a dirt road on Monday.
Jeff Kopp and his dog, Bobby, found a newborn baby abandoned off of Marion Road in Diamond Lake at around 10:30 a.m.
Kopp said that he normally isn't in that area, but took a different route while being led by Bobby.
"He brought me over to about here, and there's when I saw what (looked like) a rabbit at first," Kopp told Wood TV.
The dog began sniffing the "rabbit."
"Then it moved," he said. "That's when I started yelling."
Kopp had a neighbor call 911 and yelled for his family.
"He hollered for myself and my mother to get a blanket or a towel because he just found a baby," his daughter, Cathleen Neal said.
The family reported that the weather was cool, and they rushed to warm the baby with the garments.
"Once the women picked her up and wrapped her up, then eventually she started to cry and we knew that she was OK," Kopp recounted.
"She wasn't crying or moving until I picked her up," Neal affirmed. "It was a relief to me because I knew she was alive."
The baby's umbilical cord was still attached.
Newaygo County Sheriff's Department Lt. Chad Palmiter reported that the child was taken to Gerber Memorial Hospital in Fremont, and the mother was found later that day. Her identity has not been released, but neighbors believe she is a teenager.
After Kopp found the baby, a teenage girl came outside. Neal believes that the girl was the mother.
"When the young lady came out and asked us what was going on and I told her, she just made it seem like she didn't know what was going on, but yet she was the one who had the baby," Neal told Wood TV.
"There are other options," she added.
Like many other states, Michigan has a Safe Haven law which allows parents to drop off infants at police stations, hospitals, or fire houses anonymously.
"I know she's a young girl, but she's not stupid, so it really makes me wonder why," Neal said. "It's just really hard to believe. It's really hard to believe that someone would do that."
The baby's father has not been identified, and possible criminal charges against the mother have not been determined.
Kopp said the circumstances were more than just being in the right place at the right time.
"I feel that we were led to that place, OK, because it was out of the ordinary for me to come in this direction," he said. "I tend to think it was God led us this way, that all life is precious to Him."
