An Open Invitation to NYC Mayor Eric Adams…Go See This Film

By Joe Maniscalco

Hi, Mayor Adams. If you haven’t already seen it, we’d like to invite you to Thursday night’s encore performance of “Honorable But Broken - EMS in Crisis” at Cinema Village over on E. 22nd St. We saw it this past weekend as part of the Workers Unite! Film Festival and you’ve gotta see it, too. We know a guy there, and can probably get you in for nothing.

Director Bryony Gilbey has done an incredible job documenting the catastrophic pressures facing Emergency Medical Technicians and Paramedics across the country, but New York City is featured prominently. Long hours, unsustainable wages, stress, burnout, lack of support — it’s all laid out there on the big screen.

Oren Barzilay, head of Local 2507, Uniformed EMT’s, Paramedics & Fire Inspectors is in it, too. You know Oren, he’s the guy who’s been after you to fulfill that campaign promise you made to New York City EMTs and paramedics to finally deliver the pay parity they’ve been denied for decades. We think you said something like, “That comes to an end when I become mayor.” Well, hearing Oren talk about what the job is doing to his members might just bring you to tears.

Really, bring some Kleenex or a handkerchief because if that doesn’t get you, Eileen Mondello talking about how the pressures of being a New York City EMT led to her 23-year-old son John’s tragic death in 2020 ought to do it. It made us tear up and we’ve talked to a lot of EMTs and paramedics about the horrific and heartbreaking things they’ve experienced on the job while barely being able to make rent.

And that’s the point, Mr. Mayor. We know you’re busy driving municipal retirees into privatized healthcare, chasing migrants out of town, covering for top mayoral advisors acting like jerks, and “watering down” and “delaying” traffic redesigns aimed at giving pedestrians a shot at making it to the other side of the street alive — but your job ain’t as tough as being an EMT or paramedic. Our job isn’t as tough as being a EMT or paramedic. Truth be told, we’re hard-pressed to think of any job that is as tough as being a New York City EMT or paramedic.

New York City EMTs and paramedics, as well as those across the country, aren’t the “ambulance drivers” they’ve been erroneously characterized as being for way too long now — they’re highly-trained and impossibly dedicated lifesavers administering emergency medical care in the streets and on the linoleum floor. They’re reviving newborn babies who’ve turned blue in their cribs, resuscitating elderly grandmas who’ve suffered a cardiac arrest out at Christmas dinner — you name the nightmare — they walk into it. 

When 7-year-old Kamari Hughes was run over in Brooklyn last week, who do you think answered the call to try and save him? EMS workers do that kind of work day in and day out. Sometimes, the stars align and things turn out right and they beat the odds. Other times they don’t, and it is soul crushing.

We know how folks in government like to describe what they do as “serving the public” — but, c’mon, let’s be serious about who’s doing what here. The starting salary for EMTs is $39,386 – $47,016? And you and your top lieutenants are raking in more than $256K a year? C’mon. 

John Mondello Jr. should have been making six-figures trying to literally bring New Yorkers back from the dead during Covid — and so should all the incredible men and women continually jumping headlong into the most catastrophic human tragedies imaginable day after day.

So, please go see “Honorable But Broken - EMS in Crisis” this week. There’s gonna be a special screening in Washington, D.C. tomorrow for members of Congress. But go ahead and see it in a theater — out of your comfort zone — the way it’s meant to be seen. 

Here’s the trailer…