Man does U-turn, rescues baby abandoned on side of highway

LAFOURCHE PARISH, La. — A man’s drive to work was anything but usual for him recently. When he was on his way to work last week he saw a man leaving a baby on the highway’s median.

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Luke Dufrene did what anyone would probably do.

“I looked back and he took off leaving the child there, so I flipped a U-turn in the grass to get to the baby,” Dufrene told The Courier in Houma, Louisiana.

The Lafourche Parish Sheriff’s Office said a man, later identified as Dillon Terrebonne, 27, abandoned the baby on the side of the road after arguing and physically assaulting the child’s mother.

The baby and the mother had been in the vehicle with Terrebonne when they started fighting. He stopped the SUV, walked to the passenger side and started hitting the woman in the head and strangling her. She was able to break free. That’s when Terrebonne jumped back into the vehicle, which was owned by the woman, and drove away, according to the sheriff’s office.

He drove about a mile before pulling over, removing the infant carrier with the baby strapped inside and leaving it on the side of the road before driving off. The mother ran after the car and her child and got to the baby quickly. Dufrene said he saw the woman get to her baby.

“I pulled into the median and put my truck in front of the child because I knew how dangerous this highway was,” Dufrene told The Courier. “And when I was pulling up, two women were approaching. One was a witness and the other was the mother.”

Terrebonne was taken to the Lafourche Parish jail, charged with domestic abuse battery involving strangulation, child endangerment and unauthorized use of a motor vehicle, sheriff’s deputies said in a news release.

Cox Media Group