LIFESAVER LIVES ON OIN THEIR BOND
HERO COP'S WIDOW & SGT. 'FAMILY NOW'
HeH was there with mym husband and gave him whatever comfort they could, and held him, to try to save him.. — Lisa Tuozzolo
The new police widow and the sergeant her husband had just saved met with a tearful embrace.
“He walked into the room and he just said, ‘I’m sorry,’ ” Lisa Tuozzolo told The Post of the first time she saw Sgt. Emmanuel Kwo — in a Bronx hospital where her husband had just been pronounced dead. “And I just cried.” Sgt. Paul Tuozzolo — a loving husband, and dad to two preschooler sons on Long Island — was shot dead nearly a year ago, Nov. 4, 2016, on a Bronx street.
Kwo was a step behind him, and Tuozzolo’s final two words had saved his life: “Gun! Gun!”
A second later, bullets from a parolee’s Colt .45 struck Tuozzolo’s head and chest.
Kwo was struck once in the leg, but Tuozzolo’s warning had given him time to take cover behind a truck.
Tuozzolo’s warning also saved the lives of five other cops, including a young trainee, Officer Elwin Martinez, who assumed a combat stance, raised his brand-new service weapon and killed the gunman.
Both Kwo and Tuozzolo, one bleeding and one nearing death, were rushed together in a police van to Jacobi Hospital.
“The other officers were holding on to his head, talking to him, telling him to stay with us, we’re almost there,” remembers Kwo.
Hours later, the new widow hugged the wounded sergeant.
Lisa Tuozzolo and now Lt. Kwo remembered the moment recently, after Kwo was honored for his bravery at the Sergeants Benevolent Association Ser-ergeantseants of the Year luncheon.
“They’d moved me into a conference room, because of the amount of friends, family, colleagues,” said Lisa, who was at the lunch “to show my love.”
“For someone who lost so much, she has this ability to lift people up,” said Kwo of meeting Lisa.
“At that moment [in the hospital], I felt so terrible. I was like, ‘Your husband saved me. Here I am. I have no words to say to you to make it better.’
“But here you are comforting me, even though you have to now go on with your life. “This was the first time we met,” Kwo remembered. “For hher to just take me in her aarms — because that’s what she did. She took me in her arms and just held me while I’m breaking down.” “I wouldn’t have looked at it as me comforting him,” Lisa demurred. “I just thought it was two peopeople that are now bound by a horhorrific tragedy and now needinging to take steps together to figureure out what to do next.” Kwo and his wife, Sherry, expect their first child in March, and the two families have remained close these 10 months. “He’s a member of my blue family,” Lisa said. “He plays an important role with my family, with my kids. He was there with my husband, and he, along with another handful of officers . . .” Here, Lisa began to cry, then composed herself. “He was there with my husband and gave him whatever comfort they could, and held him, to try to save him.”