Paramedic Describes Being Attacked During Ambulance Run
(CBS) -- Paramedics are used to answering calls for people who are hurt or injured.
But last week, it was two Chicago paramedics themselves who needed help after two men attacked them.
CBS 2's Mai Martinez talked to one of the paramedics.
When calls for medical help come in, Chicago paramedics are dispatched.
That's what happened Friday evening around 5:30, when a man fell outside a boutique in the Andersonville neighborhood.
Paramedic Frank Velez and his partner responded in ambulance No. 31.
"We put him in the back of the ambulance," he says of the patient.
They were about to transport the patient to the hospital, when they noticed two men across the street "yelling at the ambulance and just with profanity," Velez says.
Suspecting there could be trouble, Velez asked responding firefighters to stay, and it was a good call as the men turned their attention to the paramedics.
"They came from across the street and the gentleman just came and started kicking the door and you can see the marks right here of the indentation that he made," Velez tells Martinez.
Things got worse. Velez says the man ran around the ambulance to attack him.
Velez says he was hit in the shoulder and fell to the ground as he struggled with the man, hurting his back and leg in process.
When the man's friend came around the ambulance, Velez says his partner tackled him. They and the firefighters managed to control the two suspects and call police.
Thirty-one-year-old Daniel Delgado and Hector Moreno, 24, were arrested and charged with aggravated battery to a government employee.
"I have absolutely no idea why this happened," Velez says. "We had actually no physical contact with them, and we didn't even speak to these gentlemen at all."
Despite his injuries, Velez says in a way he's glad the suspects targeted them and not an average citizen.
"We did have the resource and the manpower to assist us and get these assailants off the streets," he says.
The suspects were ordered held on $150,000 bond. They're due back in court Nov. 1.
