TOOELE, Utah — The mother of a newborn baby is accused of leaving her child at the hospital over the weekend so that she could do drugs.
The 33-year-old woman was arrested Saturday and faces a charge of child abandonment after leaving her baby at Mountain West Medical Center in Tooele.
Court documents show the Tooele City Police Department was first notified Saturday that the baby was suffering from withdrawals and needed to be flown from Mountain West to the University of Utah Hospital in Salt Lake City.
Staff at the medical center told police they hadn't seen the mother for seven hours, and when she left, she refused to sign a form that said she was leaving against medical advice.
An officer later found the woman at a friend's home where she admitted to smoking fentanyl. She also said she "did not relinquish her rights to the hospital," but that she had planned on returning to the medical center to be with her baby.
According to police, the woman had multiple warrants for her arrest that existed before the weekend, and that she has a long history of substance abuse.
