3 medics will get medal named after a slain EMT
She didn’t get justice, but she did get honor.
Just days after a suspected murderer was deemed mentally unfit to stand trial in the brutal death of a beloved emergency medical technician, the FDNY is set to award a medal of valor in her honor.
The Yadira Arroyo Medal will be proudly hung on Wednesday around the necks of an EMS lieutenant and two EMTs who risked their lives last year to disarm an irate man who was using a Taser and a pair of scissors to attack a worker at a pharmacy in the Bronx.
FDNY EMS Lt. Dwight Scott and EMTs Christopher Juanilla and Tiffany Robledo, who were cleaning their ambulance across the street on Dec. 29, rushed into action when a growing crowd alerted them that a man inside the drugstore was attacking customers and employees.
With no time to wait for police, Scott and Robledo quickly disabled the attacker while Juanilla triaged the injured customers and called for backup.
“We didn’t really think about the risks involved until afterward,” Juanilla told the Daily News ahead of the medal ceremony at City Hall. “We felt a responsibility. It’s about our reputation as well. You don’t want the community to look at the Fire Department as unreliable.”
The department got nothing but community compassion in 2017, when Arroyo, a mother of five and a 14-year department veteran, was killed under the wheels of her ambulance.
Prosecutors said Arroyo, 44, died on March 16, 2017, after a man allegedly high on PCP jumped on Arroyo’s rear bumper in Soundview, the Bronx. Cops said that when she stepped out of the ambulance to investigate, suspect Jose Gonzalez slid behind the wheel and took off.
He ran her over twice and dragged her into the intersection of White Plains Road and Watson Ave. while her EMT partner tried desperately to stop him, prosecutors said.
In the five years since, frustrated
family, friends and co-workers patiently waited for a trial date only to have a Bronx judge declare last week that Gonzalez is not mentally fit to stand trial.
“That could have been any of us,” Scott said. “Once you open the door, you’re in a vulnerable point. It shocked all of us.”
The medals they are receiving were paid for by the EMS union, Local 2057.
Scott, a 24-year veteran, described Arroyo as a pleasant person, and still remembers when the call came over the radio about her death.
“It made us a little more hyperalert,” Scott said. “We all kind of know that this job is very dangerous. We go into very stressful environments. Every time we go to a call we don’t know what we’re getting into.”
Robledo said she was fortunate to have Scott and Juanilla by her side.
“We knew we could handle this together,” Robledo said. “You have to have confidence and trust in your partner.”
As for confidence and trust in the justice system, Robledo and her bosses are still holding out hope.
“All of us in the FDNY are deeply frustrated with the outcome and length of this case,” said Acting Fire Commissioner Laura Kavanagh. “For five long years since Yadira was killed, every single hearing has reopened the wound for her family and her fellow EMS members, and dangled the prospect of her killer being brought to justice. She deserves — and New York City deserves — for her killer to never be able to hurt anyone again. Yadira made the supreme sacrifice while bravely serving the city and her patients. We will never forget her or her.”