Public Employee Press
DC 37 News
EMS workers prevent attack on a Bronx man
By ALFREDO ALVARADO
Lt. Daniel Burgos and FDNY Paramedic Kevin Costello spotted a woman punching a 62 year-old man and trying to take his wallet. They quickly intervened to stop the attack until the police arrived.
Burgos, a member of Uniformed EMS Officers Local 3621, and Costello, a member of Uniformed EMTs and Paramedics Local 2507, were on 230th Street and Broadway on Saturday evening, April 7, when they spotted the assailant.
“She was beating him up and wanted to take his bag,” said Burgos, who works out of Station 19 in University Heights.
Police then arrived on the scene and arrested the assailant. The assailant, according to The Daily News, was busy that Saturday stealing the bag of another wheelchair user.
Burgos, who has been on the job 11 years, doesn’t only lend a hand when he’s in uniform. A couple of summers ago he was on a Jet Blue flight heading to a wedding in Florida when a passenger was having difficulty breathing. He took the passenger’s vital signs and advised the flight crew to make an emergency landing.
“We stopped in Charleston, South Carolina, and the passenger was taken straight to a doctor,” said the quick-thinking Burgos. “Day in and day out, this is what our members do,” said Vincent Variale, president of Local 3621. “We make sure New Yorkers are safe.”
