By:Angela Marshall
Infant named after W. Hempstead security guard and nurse missing since WTC attack
She uttered only one word -"safe."
At first, Anthony Gillian, a part-time security officer at Mercy Medical Center, didn't know what the young woman holding a baby swaddled in a green blanket was talking about. He could tell the baby was a newborn and he asked if she and the baby were okay. But she gave him a blank stare and only repeated the word "safe."
All at once he understood. Mercy is a registered safe haven, where women can take unwanted babies within the first five days of their lives, no questions asked.
Under New York's Safe Haven Law, which was passed last year, newborn babies can be brought to a safe haven hospital and the parent is free from prosecution for abandonment.
The idea behind the law is to save newborns who would have been killed by parents unable to cope with the idea of having a baby or having others know that they had one. Every year dozens of these babies' bodies have been found in toilets, garbage bins and elsewhere all over the United States.
In the New York metropolitan area, there are about 12 to 15 abandoned babies found each year, according to Tim Jaccard, president of the A.M.T. Children of Hope Baby Safe Haven Crisis Center. Thanks to the law, the number is decreasing. This year there have only been six so far.
Jaccard sent the young woman to Mercy after she called the crisis center's hotline early in the morning on Sunday, Sept. 15. He offered to send a mobile unit to pick them up, but she declined. The center has six mobile units ready to help mothers. In addition, they provide counseling and try to get the mothers to put the babies up for adoption the traditional way. They save the safe haven law, which Jaccard helped to author, as a last resort.
Although Gillian, of West Hempstead, had received training, this was the first safe haven baby brought to Mercy. He called emergency department nurse Mary Kelly out to help.
The woman handed him the baby and, Gillian said, "calmly turned around and started walking out the door."
It was a heartbreaking moment, he continued, and very emotional.
Kelly and Gillian brought the baby in to be evaluated and by all accounts he was a healthy 8.5 pound boy.
Staff members named him Anthony Michael Safe. His first name is in honor of the security guard who provided his first set of loving arms.
Michael is in honor of a Mercy emergency department nurse who was also a fireman and one of the first persons on the scene of the World Trade Center disaster. He is listed among the missing.
After a short hospital stay, baby Anthony Michael was placed in a foster home by the Nassau County Department of Social Services. The family hopes to adopt him and have chosen to keep the name given by hospital employees.
A few days later the family brought the baby back for a visit. "It was wonderful to see him again," Gillian said.
At first the security guard tried to avoid building an emotional attachment to his young charge but just seeing him again made it impossible, he said. Gillian talked for a long time with the foster father and said he was impressed. "I would trust this man with my children."
Gillian is also a foster father, having raised his brother's children.
The foster family, whose identity was unavailable, has fostered many other children and has adopted some of them.
Kelly said she was disappointed that she missed seeing the baby again. The staff hopes the family will bring him back often for visits.
Vincent DiRubbio, president and CEO of the hospital, praised the staff and said, "Everything went flawlessly with the operation of Mercy's Safe Haven program."
Twelve babies in the New York metropolitan area have been "rescued" since January, Jaccard said. It is impossible to know whether all of these babies would have been killed if the mothers didn't have the safe haven option, but Jaccard is positive at least some of them would have.
In the past three years, Jaccard and A.M.T. Children of Hope Baby Safe Haven Crisis Center have buried 32 babies. Through donations they provide plots and a military style funeral complete with bagpipes and police escorts.
The crisis center places public service ads on TV channels like MTV, hoping to reach young women before they do something drastic.
"We're not just saving babies. We're saving the lives of young women and their families," Jaccard said.
He recounted how a 15-year-old girl, who couldn't face letting her parents know she had a baby, placed it on her neighbor's porch. When she thought she saw the door opening, she left. But the door didn't open and the baby froze to death. The girl spent four years in prison.
State Sen. Dean Skelos said he was pleased to see the new law working. "Every day, we are reminded how precious life is," he said. "It is wonderful that an innocent life has been saved under the Safe-Haven program and that this child will be placed with a loving and caring family."
Skelos said he supported the law and is a sponsor of legislation to help speed the adoption process for safe haven babies.
