NEW YORK — Emergency medic Yadira Arroyo was beloved — by her colleagues, by patients she transported to the hospital, by the store owner she spoke to on her way to work and by children who walked by her Bronx station house.
The 14-year veteran of the New York Fire Department and mother of five sons, killed March 16 when she was struck by her own ambulance that had been stolen, was remembered Saturday by thousands of mourners who packed a Bronx church and poured into the streets.
“Most of all, she was a hero,” said Fire Commissioner Daniel A. Nigro. “She died as one, but most importantly, she lived as one.”
Arroyo, 44, and her partner, Monique Williams, were responding to a call of a pregnant woman in distress when they were flagged down by a pedestrian about a theft, authorities say. Arroyo got out of the vehicle and a man darted into the driver’s seat and ran her down before crashing into parked cars. The horrific scene was captured on bystander video and shows Williams sobbing over her fallen partner.