An infant heartbreakingly left in a 'baby box' has finally found his "forever family."
The child, who was around 30 minutes old at the time of his abandonment, was left in the box during the wee hours of the morning on May 27, in Knoxville, Tennessee.
A silent alarm alerted firefighters to the infant's presence, and they rushed him to a nearby hospital.
The boy was uninjured and deemed healthy after an evaluation, then placed in the care of the Tennessee Department of Children's Services, reported WVLT.
Now, he has a family looking to adopt him and provide him a "forever home," Safe Haven Baby Box founder Monica Kelsey told WBIR.
They reportedly took the baby in around two-to-three weeks after he was left in the box.
Knoxville Fire Department Assistant Chief Mark Willbanks told WVLT that the mother likely gave birth, then immediately took the baby to the station.
"We are glad this is a community resource that’s available to anyone that’s in crisis that doesn’t know what to do with a child," he said.
The Safe Haven Baby Box was installed back in February — the first one in the state.
It's available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and it's completely anonymous.
The delivery on May 27 was the first time the box was used.
"We honor her," Kelsey said of the mother. "She had a host of other unsafe options, and she chose a safe option."
Kelsey took to TikTok after the baby was dropped off to share a conversation she had with the family who sponsored the Knoxville box.
In it, she called them at 2 a.m. and told them their box had been used.
The family could be heard crying tears of joy over the phone — their box had saved a life.
There are dozens of other boxes in 10 states across the country. The Safe Haven Baby Box website has a list of each location.
Kelsey formed Safe Haven Baby Boxes in 2016 after learning she herself was abandoned as an infant and seeing a similar operation in South Africa.
The boxes are designed "to educate others on the Safe Haven Law and to do whatever it takes to save the lives of innocent babies from being abandoned."
Safe Haven laws, which are present in many states including Tennessee, protects parents from prosecution if they safely abandon their infants within two weeks of birth.
Several TikTok users took to the comments section of Kelsey's video to express their gratitude for the baby box program.
"So glad the mother had this option. Hope she's ok," wrote @lisa.the.rn.
"I wish we could get every city in every state a box!" commented @thekartrashians.
Some users even asked about the cost of sponsoring a box.
The TikTok, which was posted last week, has garnered over 7.3 million views, more than 905,000 likes and nearly 6,700 comments.
