Oak Ridge adds ‘baby box’

The city of Oak Ridge Fire Department has opened a place to drop off babies in times of crisis.

The city unveiled this baby box, the eighth in the state and the third in Anderson County, at 1 p.m. Wednesday, June 12. It’s a temperature-controlled bin installed on the outside wall of Oak Ridge’s Central Fire Station at 333 Tuskegee Drive. It will be available 24 hours a day, seven days a week to any mother who needs help in a time of crisis, a city news release stated. The box honors “Baby Wyatt,” a newborn whose dead body was found wrapped in an oversized T-shirt along the banks of Melton Hill Lake on March 26, 2020. His identity remains unknown.