Three dumpster diving heroes who found the New Mexico baby boy abandoned in the trash by his teen mom initially thought they’d discovered a puppy, DailyMail.com can reveal.
April Meadow, 43, Hector Jesso, 63, and Michael Green, 36, were driving home from a casino in Hobbs, New Mexico, when they decided to check the trash cans behind an oil rig outfitter store.
Inside was newborn Saul Astorga who had been thrown away by his mother Alexis Avila, 18, five hours earlier.
Speaking in an exclusive interview with DailyMail.com, Meadow relived the dramatic events of last Friday and told how the trio had heard whimpering coming from the dumpster and first thought it was a puppy or a kitten.
Green said he jumped into the trash can and dug through a heap of garbage before finding the bag.
April Meadow said her first reaction on realizing there was an infant in the dumpster was to shout 'It's a f**kin baby!'
Teenage parents Stephen Astorga and Alexis Avila broke up in the summer before she gave birth to baby Saul last week
Hector Jesso, 63, Michael Green, 36, and April Meadow, 42, went dumpster diving after visiting a casino in Hobbs, New Mexico
He said: ‘I just started going through the trash – it was instinct. Just trying to get to [the bag]. I didn’t even look in the bag – I was thinking a dog or a cat or something, but I didn’t want to see it all bloody you know. Sometimes, I get grossed out.’
Meadow said she was the one who ripped open the bag and was shocked when she realized they’d found a newborn.
She said: ‘The bag was done up. It’s because Michael grabbed the bag because he heard that cry – he set it down on the ground and we thought there’s a dog in there or a kitten.’
When she realized what was really inside, Meadow said her first response was to shout ‘it’s a f**king baby!’
She added: ‘I said it’s a f**king baby. I turned around and said oh my gosh, get him out of the trash.
‘He was quiet. He was just laying there in a red towel. I said, what the f**k? It’s a baby and [Jesso] started freaking out. I smashed him out of there.’
Jesso said: ‘It was a big surprise. A huge surprise actually. I heard him crying. I thought it was a kitten when I saw movement.’
Alexis Avila duped her newborn son in a dumpster behind an oil rig outfitters store in her home town of Hobbs, New Mexico
Avila, 18, appeared in court in Lovington, Texas on Wednesday afternoon, looking straight ahead and avoiding cameras
Alexis Avila (pictured in a mugshot after her arrest says she panicked after giving birth. She claims she didn't know she was pregnant until the day before
Meadow, a mom-of-three, said her maternal instincts kicked in and she ‘swooped him up’ while Green called 911.
She told DailyMail.com: ‘I didn’t know what to do after that. I was just holding him and his arms were ice cold.
‘But [Jesso] told me to get in the truck and I covered him up with my snap on jacket.
The heroic trio said they waited five minutes for the cops and EMTs to arrive, with Meadow holding the little boy while they waited.
She said: ‘It was about five minutes I held him – it’s a long time since I held a newborn.’
All three said they were relieved they managed to find the baby in time, with Green telling DailyMail.com that it was ‘pure luck’ they had decided to search the dumpster.
Meadow added: ‘It gives me goosebumps. I don’t ever want to see anything like
