On a sweltering day in July, Earl Abernathy was sitting in traffic, on his way to Sullivan House High School, where he’s a counselor and basketball and flag football coach. Abernathy, who had his windows rolled down on account of a busted air conditioner in his 23-year-old van, was driving past St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church on Roosevelt Road in Little Italy when he heard a baby crying. He spotted a car seat on the steps of the church, tipped on its side. A 7-month-old girl was strapped in. No one else had seen her — or at least, no one had bothered to pull over.
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Abernathy put his hazard lights on, hurried to the baby, and dialed 911. He also took the next logical-for-2025 step by hopping on Facebook Live and broadcasting his discovery: “Don’t nobody recognize this baby?” It worked. He soon heard from the infant’s grandmother and aunt. Turned out that the infant had been in a car that was stolen earlier that day from a gas station, and the carjacker had deposited her on the church steps. Thanks to Abernathy, the girl was soon reunited with her family, including a grateful grandmother. “She was calling me, like, every other day, going, ‘You’re a blessing to my family. I appreciate you.’ ”
Abernathy, 33, was surprised to see his actions make national news. “I didn’t even really think it was going to be a big deal,” the Washington Heights resident says. “But people were like, ‘Well, it is a big deal, because most things we hear about people in our community are bad things.’ ” Being called a hero, he says, “is actually kind of cool.” So are the shout-outs and selfie requests he randomly receives on the street. The recognition even got Abernathy out of a speeding ticket recently. He’d forgotten his driver’s license at home, so instead he showed the officer an article about the rescue he’d clipped from the Sun-Times.
Even better, his uncle, who had been lending him the old van to get to odd jobs, started a GoFundMe campaign to purchase his nephew reliable transportation. Enough donations poured in to buy a new car: a Jeep Laredo. It’s got “a banger music system,” Abernathy says. And a working AC.