There are a couple of ways law-abiding citizens can abandon children in Nebraska. Sometimes a desperate parent will tell the child they're going to the hospital for something minor, like a rash — then, in the emergency room, the child waits and waits, only to discover only the doctors are there and mother has walked away for good. On the other hand, unruly teenagers might simply be dumped at the ER door. "A parent will pull up and say, 'All right, get out of the car," says Lisa Stites of Creighton University Medical Center in Omaha. In other states, laws that allow parents to leave their children in hospitals or fire stations are usually limited to newborns of a few weeks or months. In Nebraska, the law failed to define the word "child." As a result, children as old as 17 have been abandoned.
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