Family’s car stolen from hospital as they welcomed a baby girl

An Oregon family’s car was stolen from a hospital parking lot as they welcomed a newborn baby girl, according to KGW-TV.

Dalan Askew told KGW that he and his wife were getting ready to leave the Legacy Mount Hood Medical Center in Gresham, Oregon, on Tuesday after their third child, Penelope Jade, was born last weekend.

Askew said Penelope is “seven pounds even" and “she came out perfect.”

Askew said he loaded the family’s 1990 Subaru Legacy with gifts and other baby items in order to take their new family of five home, and then returned to the hospital room to help his wife feed and bathe Penelope. When he returned for the car about an hour later, it was gone.

“It’s just heartbreaking,” Askew said. “The person who took it must’ve had low self-esteem and not care about anything but getting what he wanted.”

Askew said he checked the parking lot twice for the car — the family’s only mode of transportation — before they filed a police report.

Asked if he has a message for the thief, Askew replied: “Just return what’s not yours. Do the right thing.”

In a statement to KGW, a spokesperson for Legacy Health said in part:

Legacy Health Security Services does daily, proactive and random patrols of the medical center campus and parking lots to promote visitor safety and deter vehicle theft. Unfortunately, vehicle theft happens many times every day across the U.S., and busy public parking lots are targets for thieves. A vehicle is stolen every 44 second [sic] in the United States according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

It was an unfortunate day for this family who is celebrating the birth of their baby. They learned that their car was stolen as they were planning to go home. Legacy Mount Hood Family Birth Center staff responded quickly to offer support to the family to arrange transportation and to provide an infant car seat to make sure they could safely transport their baby home.

A GoFundMe page has been set up to help the Askew family replace their stolen car and other items.