Yadira Arroyo, Slain Bronx EMT, To Be Remembered At Vigil

THE BRONX, NY — It's been nearly a year since Yadira Arroyo was killed by her own ambulance, but her onetime coworkers haven't forgotten the Bronx EMT's death. Paramedics and emergency medical workers will mark the anniversary of Arroyo's slaying Friday evening with a vigil at the site where she was run down as her alleged killer awaits trial.

Arroyo, a 14-year FDNY veteran and mother of five, and another EMT were on the way to a 911 call on the evening of March 16, 2017 when they heard a man was riding on the back of their ambulance.

When they got out to see what was happening, the man, Jose Gonzalez, allegedly jumped in the driver's seat, backed the ambulance into Arroyo and dragged her along as he tried to flee. Arroyo eventually died at Jacobi Medical Center.

Local officials are set to join EMTs and paramedics for Friday's 5 p.m. candlelight vigil at the corner of White Plains Road and Watson Avenue in the Soundview neighborhood, where the alleged carjacking and slaying occurred. Local 2507 of the Uniformed EMTs, Paramedics and Inspectors, the labor union representing uniformed emergency workers, is sponsoring the vigil.

The memorial will come about two weeks before Gonzalez's next scheduled court date on March 29. He's pleaded not guilty to charges including murder, robbery and operating a motor vehicle while impaired by drugs.

Gonzalez told investigators he had smoked "two blunts" laced with PCP and taken the drug Seroquel before the incident, the New York Post reported last year.

Arroyo was the eighth member of the FDNY's Emergency Medical Services team to die in the line of duty. The Fire Department honored her in October with a plaque on its Line of Duty Death Memorial Wall.

"She cared for her patients deeply – providing them medical care, love, compassion and dignity – always," Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro said in a statement at the time. "In her final moments, she was fighting for patients and was cruelly taken from us all far too soon."

(Lead image: A portrait of Yadira Arroyo is carried into a church for her funeral on March 25, 2017. Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)