EMT Dies After Being Run Over by Stolen Ambulance

A man hijacked an ambulance in New York City on Thursday and killed one of the emergency medical technicians who’d been inside it, after speeding off with her stuck beneath the wheels. The victim, Yadira Arroyo, 44, was a 14-year veteran EMT of the New York City Fire Department, and a mother of five children, Mayor Bill de Blasio said at an evening press conference. The incident happened at about 7 p.m., when two EMTs stopped in the Bronx when witnesses say they were flagged down because a man was riding their ambulance’s back bumper. When one of the EMTs got out to investigate, the man, identified as 25-year-old Jose Gonzales, hopped inside the driver’s seat and reversed into her before driving off. Arroyo fell beneath one of the wheels and was dragged a short distance, and died of her injuries. The victim’s EMT partner suffered minor injuries and is being treated at Jacobi Medical Center, authorities said. The New York Daily News reports Gonzales was tackled by onlookers and was said to be “incoherent and talking to himself.” Video of the incident shows the hijacked ambulance flying through an intersection chaotically, with lights flashing, with Arroyo’s body beneath it and a door wide open as a crowd of bystanders looks on. The video also captured the surviving EMT’s reaction as she wailed over the body of her dead partner. “She started her shift today, like every other day, and then a senseless act of violence takes her life,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said from the hospital. Overnight, Gonzalez was charged with three counts of murder, grand larceny, and operating a motor vehicle while impaired by drugs, NYPD officials said.