After Rescuing Baby Left in Woods, Orion Twp. Deputies Reflect
(Crystal A. Proxmire, May 3, 2021)
Orion Township, MI – In his 24 year career, Deputy Michael Summers has seen everything from bank robberies to domestic abuse to apprehending dangerous fugitives.
But for Summers and the team of deputies that coordinated to find four month old Baby Carter who had been left alone to die in the woods by his own mother earlier this month, the real appeal of being in law enforcement is being able to help people.
“We are people just like you, trying to do the best job we can,” Summers said.
“One thing that feels good is being able to find older folks who wander off or get lost. They’re getting older and don’t remember where they are. Things change fast. There’s new technology. And they’re afraid. There’s been a few times I’ve been able to reunite someone with their family and get them home where they feel safe.
“There are also people who take advantage of other people, and sometimes we’re able to investigate and find a resolution for people.”
Summers served as a military police officer before joining the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office. There he learned to handle all kinds of problems with young men with guns, a fighting spirit and sometimes alcohol. He grew to be a calming force in tense situations. It’s a gift that’s led to his reputation as the one to call when there’s a person in mental distress.
On April 7, a Wednesday morning, Summers and over a dozen deputies were on duty as it was a training day. Calls came in to the Orion Substation about a woman in distress around 8:35 am. She’d been knocking on doors in an apartment complex at Waldon and Joselyn Roads, and she’d been approaching people near Waldon Middle School.
When Deputy Summers approached the 37 year old woman, she was “screaming and hysterical.” Among her shouts were accusations that she was being followed and that someone was trying to kill her.
While Summers began to drive the woman to the hospital for evaluation, other deputies spoke to neighbors in the apartment complex. They learned that there was a baby boy named Carter, and he wasn’t in the home.
In hopes of sparking some concern for the child or getting her to say where he was, Deputy Summers brought the woman back to the apartments where Deputy Sheri Will took over the questioning.
“They asked me to talk to the female and have her tell us where the baby was at,” said Deputy Will, who has been in law enforcement over 22 years.
“Females can relate to other females better, especially if they’ve been hurt or violated, it’s easier to feel safe telling those things to a woman.”
Deputy Will is one of four female deputies at the Orion substation. She started working in corrections before working in Rochester Hills, then Orion Township.
The day before helping to rescue with Baby Carter, Will went to a scene where a woman coming down from drugs had been driving with her seven year old son in the car. The boy had not been belted in, and miraculously survived when the mother rolled the car three times.
“Sometimes it’s worse,” Deputy Will said. “Sometimes we’re telling people their loved ones are dead. We see all that. The crashes. The overdoses. The assaults. It would be non-human if you said it’s didn’t affect you.”
“We’re like family here at the substation,” she added. “Our partners know what we’re going through and most of us are strong enough to work through it and help each other… We calm each other down and make each other laugh.”
Deputy Summer also feels like police officers understand better than others what pressure they face. “We may show up at a call about someone who is upset their mailbox got damaged. And we get it. We know why they’re mad and we want to help. But that guy may not know that five minutes before we were just at a home of a boy who died of cancer,” he said. “We just have to emotionally take a moment to adjust to each call. And sometimes a minute is all you have because things happen so fast.”
Deputy Will was able to calm the mother some. She noticed the woman’s dirty clothes, and the burrs stuck to her pants legs. According to the mother, Baby Carter was in the woods, dead.
Lt. Daniel Toth, who oversees the Orion substation, listened to Deputy Will call out on the radio “We’re looking for a baby.”
“You could hear that seriousness in your voice when you said that,” Lt. Toth said. “We didn’t know exactly what we had at first, but when you said there was a baby, everyone’s training kicked in and we went down the right path.”
Deputies identified the most likely area of Baby Carter’s disposal. The K9 unit came down and an aviation unit was requested. Sgt. Darren Zehnpfenning led the search scene, with deputies giving the K9 a chance to work before entering the woods, so the baby’s scent would not be lost.
Sgt. Zehphenning has been with OCSO since July 2004 when he was fresh out of the police academy. “This is where I wanted to be because it was a bigger agency, with lots of things to experience, lots of special units,” he said.
Growing up, Zehnpfennig would go with his mom to visit his uncle who owned a car wash on the east side of Detroit. “A lot of guys from the 5th Precinct would go there because my uncle had the contract for their cars. So I got to see a lot of police growing up,” he said, adding with a laugh “I was a little kid and I remembered being handcuffed to my brother.” He also knew officers who volunteered with sports through the years, including football coaches who had been good mentors for him.
As the K9 began its search, Sgt. Zehnpfennig walked along a sidewalk which wouldn’t have been a good path for the dog to follow a scent. He was on the phone calling for aerial support when he happened to stop and catch a glimpse of white skin among the shades of brown that make up the trees, leaves and mud of the forest. Peering closer he saw the baby’s body, down a ravine and partially in the water of the creek.
“It was a perfect moment. I stopped right at the right spot where there was a break in the trees. I can’t even tell you how lucky it was. I’ve walked up and down that sidewalk thinking about this, how if I had stopped at any other spot he would have been blocked by the trees.”
“We didn’t think he was alive, but no matter how far gone an infant is, you’re going to do everything you can to get it back,” he said.
As Sgt. Zehnpfennig rushed down the ravine, his mind was not on excitement, or relief, or hope, or sadness. It was on his training.
“What was going through my mind was infant chest compression timing. I’ve not had to do CPR on an infant besides training, so I was thinking of the rhythm to do that.”
Sgt. Zehnpfennig’s training has gotten him through a lot challenges, including administering Narcan to stop an overdose in a grocery store bathroom and disarming a man who had just robbed a pawn shop in Pontiac. He once helped a child who’d been so badly burned in the bath that its skin was peeling off. Another child he’d seen with his head bashed in on a banister. And of course a litany of people who’d been battered, raped, and murdered at the hands of other humans.
Baby Carter wasn’t even the first baby he’s found in his time with the department. “I didn’t even think about it, but my wife reminded me. I had found a baby in Pontiac,” he said. “I was dispatched to a call, whatever it was, and when the call was over my partner and I were talking about a car that was oddly parked. I don’t remember what it was but it just didn’t feel right. We went up to check the car. It was raining out. I went to the front and my partner went to the back and there was a baby there. Nobody was around. So we took the baby to the station. Turns out mom was down the street using heroin, and she didn’t want to go back due to the lights from the police cars.”
When Sgt. Zehnpfennig reached Baby Carter, he still believed the boy was dead. “His face was out of the creek, but his legs were submerged in water. He was cold,” he said. “I started climbing back up, holding him against my shirt to help him get warm, and as I was climbing back up he opened his eyes. I was shocked. It was a good feeling. I was so thankful.”
Baby Carter was hypothermic. His diaper was soiled and soaked extra badly due to the water from the creek. “Another deputy had a blanket and a rain jacket, so we stripped the wet clothes off and I took off the diaper. I have small children, and there’s a way you take a diaper off without making a mess. I wouldn’t have been able to do that five years ago.”
The boy was wrapped in the blanket and jacket and whisked off to the hospital where he was found to have no injuries. News of his safe rescue spread across the internet, with the story even making a mention in People Magazine’s website. And those involved in the rescue set about doing the paperwork.
“It was a good day. We’re glad the baby was okay. Obviously there’s a sense of relief. But we help people all the time whether they’re 99 years old or a baby,” said Detective Summers. “God puts you where he wants, and you just get through the day, you do as much good as you can, but there’s not a lot of ego here.”
Lt. Toth is proud of the teamwork. “When we get 911 calls, we have to look at each situation like an iceberg. We only get part of the information, and we have to try and find what’s below the surface. Deputy Will and Deputy Summers were able to do that in this case, to be patient with the woman and find out what was going on. Because of that Baby Carter was found in time. Everyone followed their training and we had a good outcome. Something like that could have gone on for hours. And it could have ended differently…. When that baby started crying, that was a good thing.”
Officers don’t often know what happens after they’ve been involved in an incident. “Sometimes I’d rather not know. You may not like what happens and it weighs on you,” Sgt. Zehnpfennig said. But in this case, deputies are paying attention. They want Baby Carter to end up someplace safe and warm. The child is currently with a relative while the slow-turning wheels of justice help decide his fate.
Prosecutor Karen McDonald’s office has not yet announced whether charges will be filed. She did tell Oakland County Times that “The mother was initially arrested and then released to inpatient medical treatment. She remains at an inpatient facility at this time. She has not been charged with any crimes at this time. Carter is placed with family members, and we are informed that he is safe and healthy.”
McDonald praised the Deputies for their work. “This could have had a tragic outcome. There is no doubt that the fast action, fast thinking and extraordinary efforts of the Oakland County Sheriff’s Department saved this child’s life,” she said.
Lt. Toth hopes the incident can help others be more aware of the resources out there for individuals who are struggling with mental health issues, including addiction, as well as agencies that help families in need of counseling and other support.
“Families and citizen should understand that the police work daily with Child Protective Services (CPS), Adult Protective Services (APS), Schools, Common Ground, the Prosecutors Office, our Courts and a host of other agencies with a mutual goal of preventing these types of incidents,” he said. “That did not happen in this case and we need to do our best to protect Baby Carter and other similar young victims. Families need to know that young mothers have options and we all rely on each other to make that phone call to us, so we can engage all our other partners prior to such crisis.”
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Baby Found in Wooded Area of Orion Township
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