On Monday morning a Long Island Rail Road passenger making his way across the second level "B" platform stopped to pick up what he believed was just a plastic bag carelessly left on the ground next to a trash bin. Inside the bag, however, the Hicksville commuter found the deceased body of a deceased male newborn with its umbilical cord still attached.

According to Nassau County Police and MTA Police, the biracial baby was born alive and at full-term. It is believed that the baby was born alive and left for dead Nov. 27 sometime between 12 a.m. - after the bins were emptied - and 5 a.m. - when commuters began arriving at the station. Investigators believe the baby died from hyperthermia.

Police are asking the public's help in identifying the baby as well as for knowledge of the circumstances. If charged with murder, this person(s) faces 25 years to life. Anyone with information is asked to contact Crime Stoppers at 1-800-244-TIPS. All callers will remain anonymous.

This most recent act of disregard for human life marks the fifth time a deceased newborn has been found in the metropolitan area in 2006. While the numbers have dramatically decreased in the past decade - there were around 16 a year in 1998 - the fact that it is still happening at all is baffling to Timothy Jaccard, founder and president of the non-profit AMT Children of Hope Foundation.

A full-time paramedic for the Nassau County Police Department, Jaccard has spent the past eight years working to educate and prevent the abandonment and death of infants. In 1998, Jaccard wrote his first Safe Haven law and, in 2000, it was passed in New York State. Today, 47 states have adopted Safe Haven laws - with legislation pending in three states, Hawaii, Alaska and Nebraska. Throughout the country, the Safe Haven option has meant a second chance of life for some 1,112 infants.

The Safe Haven legislation provides a responsible alternative, especially to mothers who find themselves in desperate situations. It allows them to voluntarily deliver a newborn baby to a provider without threat of criminal prosecution. Safe Haven legislation addresses two important issues: it significantly reduces the risk that a newborn will be abandoned in a perilous environment that may result in death and it protects the parents who feel they have no option other than abandonment, but who compassionately deliver their newborn to a safe haven.

A Safe Haven is a designated public place, or in New York's case , a person, who willinly accepts the responsibility of the baby. The goal of Safe Haven is to accept an infant from a birth mother, get the infant medical care if needed and then put the infant in the adoption process.

On a local front, area hospitals such as Winthrop, Mercy, Nassau University Medical Center and North Shore-LIJ are all Safe Haven location,s as are police stations, fire departments and even various stores identified with a Safe Haven decal who can immediately get in touch with a Children of Hope volunteer.

In addition, pregnant mothers can contact the Children of Hope Foundation and discuss options before the child is born and provide them with medical assistance and emotional support as well as arrange for adoption, should the mother wish to chose that option. All mothers, should they wish, have the option of relinquishing the child and remaining anonymous, whether it is prior to or after birth.

So far this year, through the Safe Haven law and efforts of the Children of Hope Foundation, 14 babies have been relinquished, no questions asked, through the program. Currently, Jaccard said the foundation is working with five pregnant mothers in Nassau County - four whom are looking to relinquish the child and one who is going to raise the baby.

In an interview with the Hicksville Illustrated News, Jaccard said he knows he's doing a good thing when he looks at some 100 photographs of babies he helped save that hang on his Mineola office wall. "When I have a baby in my arms who has been rescued, I know that this is a good thing," he said.

The Nassau County medic set out to implement this initiative country-wide in 1998 after responding to five calls in a 90-day period that involved abandoned and deceased newborns. He said the first call, for a baby boy who had been drowned in a bathroom at the Main Street courthouse in Hempstead, came the same morning he learned his pregnant daughter had a miscarriage. "Three weeks later I found a baby in a Hempstead backyard and two weeks later, another, in a bin. It was very disheartening," he said.

At first, Jaccard simply wanted to give these innocents dignity and a proper burial so he purchased 196 plots at Holy Rood Cemetery in Westbury. Soon after, he said, he began looking closer at the abandonment laws. "I wanted to do everything I could to save a child," he said, adding that as of Saturday, when baby Farrington Marie Hope, who was found in a Flushing dumpster last month is laid to rest, 95 infants will have been buried at what is now known as the Island of Hope at Holy Rood.

The baby found at the Hicksville train station will named by the person who found him and, in about three weeks, will be laid to rest at the Island of Hope.

For more information on the AMT Children of Hope Foundation call 781-3511 or visit http://www.amtchildrenofhope.com. To contact the crisis line call 877-796-HOPE (4673) 24 hours a day, seven days a week.