By Laura French
NEW YORK — The FDNY unveiled its EMS Week 2021 poster at the department’s headquarters on Monday.
The poster displays this year’s theme, “This is EMS: Caring for Our Communities,” and features EMT Melissa Rivera, EMT Gilbert Sepulveda and Paramedic Kyle LoGiudice. The poster, which will be displayed on digital LinkNYC kiosks throughout the city, shows providers in their assigned PPE, providing medical care during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CO-vkhMFdCj/
“Normally, this would be the start of an EMS Week filled with events. But due to the pandemic that we still find ourselves in, despite the improving numbers of New Yorkers vaccinated and the decreasing number of COVID cases, the larger events we would normally hold are just not yet possible,” FDNY Commissioner Daniel Nigro said in a statement. “Each year, this poster is an integral part of the celebration of National EMS Week, and it shows just one example of what our members go through to save lives on thousands of medical calls each day. The theme this year for National EMS Week is ‘Caring for our Communities,’ and no group has done that more in the last year in our city than EMS.”
At the height of the pandemic, FDNY EMS providers responded to a record number of daily medical calls, with the highest-ever number coming on March 30 with 6,527 medical emergencies in the city. Overall, FDNY EMS responded to 1,412,690 medical emergencies in 2020, an 8% decrease from 2019 when there were a record 1,531,870 medical calls.
“It is a great honor to be on this year’s EMS Week poster. It has been a tough year and I love being able to represent the Department and show what EMS is doing for this city,” said Sepulveda, a nine-year veteran of the department, in a statement.
Rivera, a 13-year FDNY EMS veteran, stated, “I was very excited to be part of this year’s EMS Week poster. It feels great to show what we do as a Department, we did an amazing job this past year.”
“It is a huge honor to be on the poster, I really love this job and the communities that I serve,” LoGuidice stated.
The FDNY will be spotlighting individual EMS members and their stories on its social media pages throughout the week, officials said.
https://twitter.com/FDNY/status/1394325921298006019?s=20 https://twitter.com/FDNY/status/1394325591038509061?s=20
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