Bronx EMT nearly shot in ambulance was partners with EMS worker murdered in 2017
Two EMS workers were nearly shot in the Bronx overnight after a gunman opened fire, hitting their ambulance and shooting a teenager.
CBS News New York spoke exclusively with the EMTs.
One of them was partners with an EMT who was murdered on the job in 2017.
Police said it happened just after midnight Thursday on Webster Avenue in the Morrisania section, where the ambulance was parked.
"We're being shot at"
EMT Francisco Vasquez was in the middle of his 12-hour shift around Midnight Thursday. He and his partner Victor Mora parked their FDNY ambulance on Webster Avenue in the Bronx. They were getting ready to respond to a 911 call for a woman in distress.
"Then, all of a sudden, we hear gunfire behind us," Vasquez said.
Bullets tore through the back of the ambulance and pierced the front windshield.
"Pow, hits the glass, and all of a sudden we're ducking," Vasquez said.
He and his partner quickly picked up the radio to contact dispatch.
"We're being shot at," he said over the radio.
"At one point, I thought my partner was shot"
"I was just making sure my partner was OK, making sure he didn't get him," Mora said.
Thankfully, neither of the EMTs were injured.
"At one point, I thought my partner was shot, 'cause the bullet went right through the window in front of him. I was like, 'Oh my God, Victor, are you OK?' And then bystanders come knocking on the window," Vasquez said.
Vasquez said they were saying another person had been shot.
"We look, there's a gentleman holding his stomach," Vasquez said.
Police and another ambulance soon arrived, and took the 18-year-old to the hospital, where we're told he is in stable condition. It's unclear if he was the intended target. Right now, the motive of the shootiing isn't knoown.
Video from the scene showed the hole left in the back window and a large crack in the front windshield from the bullet.
Chilling reminder of previous tragic violence
CBS News New York asked Vasquez what was going through his mind during the shooting.
"Am I gonna go home?" he said.
The shooting brought back memories of Vasquez's former partner, EMT Yadira Arroyo, who was murdered on the job nine years ago, when a man ran her over with her own ambulance.
"Her brother, I speak to him every day. I think what he went through. My brothers, sisters, mom - maybe they would have to go through that situation," Vasquez said.
Workplace violence incidents increased over 13 years
The job has only gotten more dangerous since Arroyo's killing. Data from the EMT union shows workplace violence for EMS has more than tripled over the past decade, from 99 in 2014 to 423 in 2024.
"This is the danger we face every day," said Michael Greco of FDNY EMS Local 2507, the union representing EMTs, paramedics and fire inspectors.
Their union wants City Hall to increase the starting salary of EMTs, which is below $50,000.
"It's not worth coming here if they're gonna pay us poverty wages, and then here we are, show up to help someone in their hour of need, and a bullet goes through our windshiled."
A spokesperson for the FDNY said, in part, "the FDNY provides extensive de-escalation and self-defense training to all members, as well as body armor."
So far, there have been no arrests for the shooting.
