Anthony Almojera, VP of Local 3621 and a lieutenant paramedic, says FDNY EMS is hemorrhaging 10 to 15 workers every week and cardiac arrest response times have roughly doubled in some parts of the city — a consequence, he argues, of pay and conditions that make the job unsustainable.

Anthony Almojera, a lieutenant paramedic and vice president of Local 3621, the FDNY EMS officers' union, wrote in The Chief Leader on July 22 that the department is losing 10 to 15 EMTs and paramedics every week — and that the hemorrhage is already registering in how fast ambulances reach cardiac arrest patients.

Cardiac arrest response times that once averaged roughly six minutes are now hitting 12 to 13 minutes or longer in some parts of the city, Almojera wrote. FDNY EMS handles more than 6,000 emergency calls a day.

"They aren't retiring. They're escaping," he wrote.

Almojera said supervisors are actively steering incoming EMTs to treat the job as a stepping stone, because staying isn't sustainable. The contract covering roughly 4,300 FDNY EMTs and paramedics has been expired since approximately 2022, with no new contract announced. Starting pay stands at $39,386 a year — about $18.94 an hour, roughly 35 cents less on the dollar than a first-year firefighter at the same department, as The Dissent has reported.

FDNY Commissioner Lillian Bonsignore has publicly backed pay parity for EMS workers, but the contract remains open.

Since 2020, Almojera said, 14 FDNY EMS members have died by suicide. At any given time, he wrote, union leadership is supporting dozens of members dealing with depression, anxiety, trauma, or thoughts of self-harm.

Almojera said he no longer recommends the job to anyone he knows. "New York City has not yet decided that difference is worth paying for," he wrote. The op-ed appeared in The Chief Leader and on his Substack under the headline "The tragedy of FDNY EMS."