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Father and Son Help Rescue Abandoned Baby

On a cold winter day Gabriel Estrada, a high school senior in Twin Lakes, Wisconsin, did the unthinkable. When his 17-year-old girlfriend secretly gave birth to a baby boy on January 15, 2002, she dressed it and asked him to deliver it to a church. Instead, Gabriel wrapped the baby in a canvas bag and left him in a portable toilet in a nearby park to die. But against incredible odds the baby was saved.

According to police there was virtually no chance the infant would survive. Temperatures were well below freezing. Lack of snow meant the nearby sledding hill would not be frequented by kids. And the sanitation company's scheduled pick-up was days away.

Village of Twin Lakes police credit a father and son for saving the child's life. About 4 o'clock in the afternoon on January 16th a father (wishing to remain anonymous) and his young son stopped at the abandoned West Side Park in need of a bathroom. Hearing a whimpering sound coming from the port-a-potty, they knew something was wrong. They called 911 to report what they had discovered.

When Officer Randy Prudik responded to the call, he pulled the canvas bag from the outdoor toilet and raced to nearby Burlington Memorial Hospital where the baby received emergency treatment.

"There's no way he would have survived that," Prudik said. "That little guy had somebody watching over him."

As a testament to the boy's survival, the nurses at the hospital dubbed him William Grant: William for the will to live and Grant for not taking life for granted.

On a grander scale, another Father and Son rescue team intervened on behalf of doomed humanity. "For God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whosoever believes in him would not perish but have eternal life" (John 3:16).

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