Good Afternoon, joining me today is Mayor Bill de Blasio, NYPD Chief of Department Philip Banks, Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce, Chief of Housing Carlos Gomez, NYPD Chief Surgeon Doctor Eli Kleinman, and PBA President Patrick Lynch.

This afternoon at 12:28 p.m. two police officers assigned to the Housing Bureau Police Service Area 1, while on patrol in uniform in a marked patrol van, responded to 911 calls for help when a fire broke out on the 13th floor at 2007 Surf Avenue in the Coney Island Section of Brooklyn. Police Officers Rosa Rodriguez and Dennis Guerra took the building’s elevator up to the 13th floor, where they were overcome by smoke in the hallway. Fire Department personnel arrived at the building and made their way up to the 13th Floor, where they located both police officers, unconscious and unresponsive, on the hallway floor. The responding firefighters pulled both police officers back into the elevator and brought them downstairs to the main entrance, where EMS personnel treated the officers in front of the Coney Island Housing Development, Site 1B.

Police Officer Rodriguez was initially transported, conscious, to Lutheran Hospital in Brooklyn, where she was stabilized and subsequently transferred to Cornell Medical Center in Manhattan, where she was intubated, to be placed into a hyperbaric chamber. Police Officer Guerra was resuscitated in the field and then brought to Coney Island Hospital, where he was stabilized. He was then air-lifted to Jacobi Medical Center in the Bronx, where he is currently being treated. Both police officers remain in critical condition. They are both being treated for carbon monoxide poisoning and the effects of smoke inhalation.

Police Officer Rosa Rodriquez is 36 years old with more than 3 years with the Department. Police Officer Guerra is 38 years old with more than 7 years with the Department.

The cause of the fire has been deemed suspicious and is under investigation at this time.

I want to thank the medical staff at all four hospitals that attended to our officers.

(YWN Desk – NYC)