Twin Infants Found Still Talk of Shawnee Fire House

By Dave Jordan, NEWS 9

SHAWNEE, Oklahoma – A 911 call may reveal more about a set of twins who were abandoned at a fire station in Shawnee.

The following is the 911 call:

Woman: "I can't take care of my babies."

Dispatcher: "You can't take care of your children?"

Woman: "I put them in the back of the truck."

The woman in the 911 call is believed to be the mother of abandoned twins speaking to a 911 dispatcher after she dropped them off outside a Shawnee fire house.

That phone call triggered a frantic search for the twins who were found, unharmed, in a firefighter's pickup truck.

Investigators say they checked with DHS which now has custody of the twins and they seem to be doing fine. Officials in Shawnee are praising the actions of the woman who left her newborns at that firehouse.

The desperation in her voice is that of a mother unable to take care of her newborns. She left them at a Shawnee fire station early Saturday morning. The twins were safely recovered from the back of a firefighter's pickup. The department is now breathing a sigh of relief over what could have happened.

"Comparatively speaking, to a whole host of other scenarios, it could have been a lot worse," Shawnee Fire Department Chief Jimmy Gibson said.

Chief Gibson struck a delicate balance of not praising the distressed mom for abandoning her children, while at the same time not condemning her.

"I won't judge her, I don't know her situation, I don't know anything about her," Gibson said.

Once the children were plucked from the back of the pickup, they had the full attention of first responders.

"As soon as the officers arrived, the firemen already had the babies and were cleaning them," Gibson said.

At that point, Corporal Dan Shumaker says the focus shifted toward finding the mom. Police said the mother made the phone call from that payphone at a Kwick-Stop just a few blocks away. Corporal Shumaker says he would have preferred she made contact with someone on duty. And as for the children, he says their future appears to be a bright one.

Police believe the children were just hours old because there were rubber bands around what would have been the twins' umbilical cord.

More: 2 Infants Found Abandoned at Shawnee Fire Station