FDNY Emergency Medical Services personnel will be provided with body armor and additional training as part of legislation enacted by the City Council on Thursday to counter an upsurge in attacks on first responders.
The two measures, written by Minority Leader Joseph Borelli, would mandate that the FDNY give paramedics and EMTs protective jackets that are resistant to stabbing and gunfire in addition to training in self-defense and de-escalation.
“In the four or five years since these bills have been kicked around, attacks on EMTs have gone up double in that short amount of time,” Borelli said on Thursday. “They’ve gone up twenty times in the two decades or so since it was first kept track of.”
“These folks don’t have a choice whether they can respond to incidents or not. We expect them to go wherever the danger is. Oftentimes, when there are incidents involving police they don’t know who the bad guys are or who the good guys are. They just have to respond to the scene and do the best they can,” Borelli later told reporters Thursday.
Records show that there were 363 attacks or threats against the city’s EMTs and paramedics in 2022 alone—a startling 2,230% increase from the 15 attacks recorded in 2011.
The legislation, which was stuck in committee last year, still need to be signed by Mayor Eric Adams.
