Rocky Top considering ‘Safe Haven Baby Box’ for fire department
Clinton firefighter Dustin Wenz looks over the Safe Haven Baby Box recently installed at Station 2 in South Clinton. The box is not open for use yet, pending completion of testing and training. (photo:G. Chambers Williams III )
the box and its installation.
The city has been contacted about having the box installed, Mayor Kerry Templin said during last Thursday’s February City Council meeting.
“I got a call from Kingston about it,” Templin told The Courier News. “I think it’s a great idea.”
Templin said Kingston has just completed installation of one of the boxes at its fire department, and there is also one in Clinton.
Clinton City Manager Roger Houck said Monday that it has one of the baby boxes at the Fire Department’s Station 2 in South Clinton, but it isn’t ready for use yet, pending training of the staff.
“We hope to have it operable by early next month,” Houck said. “We got ours in conjunction with Isaiah House, which got a grant to pay for it.”
These boxes are made and distributed by the Safe Haven Baby Boxes organization, and are made to hold an infant safely and securely until firefighters or other emergency personnel can get the baby to a hospital.
A baby box “is a safety device provided for under [a] state’s Safe Haven Law and legally permits a mother in crisis to safely, securely, and anonymously surrender [the baby] if they are unable to care for their newborn,” says an explanation on the organization’s website (shbb.org).
The box “is installed in an exterior wall of a designated fire station or hospital. It has an exterior door that automatically locks upon placement of a newborn inside the [box], and an interior door [that] allows a medical staff member to secure the surrendered newborn from inside the designated building,” the website notes.
Templin said the boxes can only be installed at fire stations that are staffed at all times, as Rocky Top’s is.
Tennessee is one of just 20 states that have passed so-called “safe haven” laws, which allow mothers to surrender newborns legally “as a last resort option for women who want to maintain complete anonymity,” the website says.
The boxes are set up so they lock after the baby is placed inside, and they automatically call 911 and set off an alarm inside the fire station. Babies usually are in the box for no longer than five minutes.
The Safe Haven website shows a box already in operation at Knoxville’s Fire Station 17, at 4804 Western Ave.