“All of our units are staged at street corners. We’re sitting ducks,” said Oren Barzilay, head of Local 2507 representing ambulance EMTs and paramedics, which are not contracted out by the FDNY.
Barzilay said his troops have dealt with “roughly 110” assaults so far this year, mostly by patients.”
By Dean Balsamini and Khristina Narizhnaya | July 22, 2023
EMS workers are “sitting ducks,” one union chief said days after a first responder was repeatedly stabbed by a deranged patient in her ambulance.
The 25-year-old Mount Sinai West FDNY first responder, was hacked with a kitchen knife while en route to a hospital near West 58th Street and 9th Avenue on Wednesday night, police said.
Violence against EMS workers has become “all too common,” said Bryn Lloyd-Bollard, spokesman for 1199SEIU, United Healthcare Workers East, which represents the injured worker.