NYPD Officer Rosa Rodriguez, of Howard Beach, recently opened her eyes for the first time since being hospitalized following a Brooklyn fire that killed her partner.
Photo courtesy the NYPD Hispanic Society
When NYPD Officer Rosa Rodriguez, who was critically injured in a Brooklyn fire that killed her partner, opened her eyes for the first time since being hospitalized, the first thing she did was give her children a thumbs-up, her colleagues said.
Rodriguez, 36, who lives in Howard Beach with her family, has been in the hospital since the April 7 fire that was allegedly set by a 16-year-old in a Coney Island public housing apartment building. Her partner, NYPD Officer Dennis Guerra, who lived in Rockaway with his wife and four children, died following the fire. He was 38 years old.
According to the NYPD Hispanic Society, Rodriguez opened her eyes for the first time April 19 at the New York-Presbyterian Hospital Weill-Cornell and, upon seeing her children, gave the thumbs-up sign as they were talking to her.
“Please continue to keep Rosa and her family in your prayers as she continues to fight,” the NYPD Hispanic Society wrote on its Facebook page.
Marcell Dockery, 16, has been charged with felony murder following the fire that, according to police, he allegedly set because he was “bored.” The NYPD said Dockery allegedly torched a mattress on the 13th floor of a New York City Housing Authority building in Coney Island. When the blaze got out of control, Dockery called 911 – after which Rodriguez and Guerra appeared on the scene, officials said. However, by the time the two arrived, the smoke was so toxic that they were knocked unconscious. Firefighters removed them from the 18-story building, and they were immediately hospitalized for carbon monoxide poisoning and smoke inhalation, officials said.
Guerra fell into a coma from which he never recovered, and he was pronounced dead at the Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx the Wednesday after the fire.
“We’ve lost a good man… a very brave police officer who did something that most of us wouldn’t know how to do: He went selflessly toward the flames,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said following Guerra’s death.
The mayor also urged the city to remember Rodriguez and her family.
“She too is a hero, and she needs our prayers and support in this moment,” de Blasio said.
By Anna Gustafson
