(WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- The NBC show “Chicago Fire” had a plot line this week that’s been called “a big mistake” by the Chicago Fire Department and “reprehensible” by an advocate for children.
In the episode that aired Wednesday, a character places a safe surrender box at a fire station in Chicago and says it’s part of the Illinois Safe Haven Law for abandoned infants.
Larry Langford, spokesman for the real Chicago Fire Department, says the show made a mistake. So-called “baby boxes” are not a legal means to surrender a newborn in Illinois.
“I would hope that, if nothing else, it’s dropped from the re-runs,” Langford tells WBBM Newsradio.
Dawn Geras, executive chairman of the Save Abandoned Babies Foundation, says under the Illinois Safe Haven Law, an abandoned baby must be handed over to a human being at a firehouse or other facility.
She said she is disappointed in the show.
“They didn’t do their homework, and now moms’ and babies’ lives are in jeopardy,” she said.
Geras says she’s afraid someone will think they can drop a baby at a fire station box and then find there is no box and panic and leave the child outside, exposed to the elements.
WBBM Newsradio has asked NBC to comment.
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