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New Family for 28-Year Old?

DW staff (nda)March 19, 2007

Staff at a Dortmund hospital expected another unwanted baby when the alarms went off in its special unit last week. But instead of an abandoned infant at the bottom of the emergency chute, they found a 28-year-old drunk.

https://p.dw.com/p/A1c2
The adult man actually managed to get inside one of these baby hatchesImage: AP

Some will do anything to be loved. It could be a campaign of chocolates and flowers intended to woo an unenthusiastic love interest; it may be a message of devotion written in the sky in a plane's vapor trail or it could be the promise of a change of ways to prove that "she really didn't mean anything to me."

Whatever form it may take, it is only human to express a desire to feel wanted and needed -- and to do whatever it takes to achieve that.

However, some may consider a German man's efforts to find someone to care for him a little extreme. After becoming melancholic after a night drowning his sorrows, Heinrich Müller climbed into a post box for unwanted babies and ended up in an emergency incubator.

Staff battle to free drunk from incubator

Dortmund police were unsure as to whether Müller, 28, was actually putting himself up for adoption in an attempt to find himself a loving couple to take care of him or whether he accidentally stumbled into the chute while inebriated. Either way, he found himself a new home all the same -- at least for one night.

Müller was arrested after hospital staff rushed to the incubator expecting to find another unwanted newborn baby only to discover him stuck in the life-saving box, happily smoking a cigarette. As staff struggled to free him from the machine, Müller fell asleep.

Unwanted baby chute saves lives

Babyklappe
This does not translate into "drunks sleep here". (It actually says "baby hatch")Image: picture-alliance/ ZB

Hundreds of babies have been deposited in the boxes set up across Germany and Austria since the scheme started five years ago but Müller is undoubtedly the largest and oldest. Many babies find new homes through the social care system. It is understood that Müller was returned to his original family after the incident.

The baby post box system came into effect after more and more young moms, unable to cope with their newborns, had been abandoning them on the street. The boxes offer a safe "no questions asked" alternative.

In Müller's case, however, the police waved that confidentiality agreement as they had a few things they wanted to quiz him over.