By Christine Vendel
Kansas City Star
Copyright 2007 The Kansas City Star

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A McDonald’s employee gave birth to a baby boy in the restaurant’s bathroom Monday afternoon and tried to flush the baby down the toilet, according to police reports.

Someone called an ambulance crew about 12:30 p.m. to the restaurant at 3741 Broadway and said a woman was in labor. When the crew arrived, they found the woman sitting on a toilet. She said she had “flushed three times but that it would not go down.”

The paramedic saw something in the toilet and asked the woman to stand up. The paramedic then found a baby face down in the water. The baby had no pulse and was not breathing.

The paramedic and his partner performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation and revived the baby.

An ambulance took the mother and baby to separate hospitals. The baby was listed in critical, but stable, condition.

Police said the 20-year-old woman told the ambulance crew that she didn’t know she was pregnant or that she had given birth. She told them she had her last menstrual cycle in January or February. But police said they have information that she previously told friends that she was pregnant.