PRINCE ALBERT, Sask. - A Wal-Mart shopper was shocked to see a purple baby's arm and umbilical cord poking out of a bloody toilet bowl in the store's washroom.
Beatrice Stieb told court Monday the infant didn't move and it appeared to be dead.
''The toilet bowl was packed full of toilet paper and soaked in blood,'' testified Stieb, one of the first witnesses to take the stand at the trial of April Dawn Halkett.
Halkett, who has pleaded not guilty to child abandonment, has admitted she gave birth in the store in Prince Albert, Sask., two years ago. The 22-year-old clutched tissue in her hand as she listened to the testimony and appeared particularly upset during the descriptions of the bloody scene.
Stieb said she quickly left the washroom with her daughter and tried to tell an assistant manager about the situation, but was brushed off. The worker said she already knew about the mess in the washroom, said Stieb.
''She just seemed annoyed.''
Stieb told court she urged her husband to do something and he insisted to the employee that there was a baby in the toilet and it was an emergency.
The assistant manager, Lynda Sinclair, testified she had been alerted to the blood earlier by other women who used the washroom.
Shopper Terry Sparks had told staff she suspected someone was having a baby when she heard grunting and saw a pool of blood on the floor in the stall next to her.
Sinclair said she went into the washroom twice to ask the woman in the bloody stall if she was all right.
''She said yes, everything was fine,'' said Sinclair. But she must have become busy with work, she said, because she didn't notice the woman leave the washroom.
Sinclair said she told store manager Chad Fraser about the baby and he ran into the washroom.
''He pulled a baby out of the toilet.''
She said she grabbed some towel to wrap around the baby and then ambulance workers arrived. The baby boy was rushed to hospital and survived.
