Russo-Elling mourned as selfless, dedicated

On a cool, wet and windy early fall morning, the city bid goodbye to one of its longtime servants. 

FDNY emergency medical service Lieutenant Alison Russo-Elling, killed late last month in a random knife attack steps from her Astoria station house, was remembered Wednesday morning by colleagues and by family as dedicated and selfless, intent on sharing her knowledge and know-how inside each of the several commands to which she was assigned during her 25-year department tenure.

Speaking inside a packed Tilles Center for the Performing Arts in Brookville at a “celebration of life” for Russo-Elling, FDNY acting Commissioner Laura Kavanagh said she “exemplified the best of our best.” 

“Alison was tough, Alison was fearless,” the commissioner said, but she also was the rock on which friends, family and colleagues could anchor themselves. “If she could give you advice, she would. If you needed tough love, you would get it. If you needed the shirt off her back, she would hand it to you,” Kavanagh said before announcing Russo-Elling’s posthumous promotion to captain. 

Russo-Elling, who was 61, would remain “the north star” by which the city, the FDNY and her family will be guided, even in mourning, Kavanagh said.

‘Her siren sang out loudly’

Saluted by thousands of her white gloved colleagues from the FDNY and surrounding fire departments, Russo-Elling’s coffin, draped in the red and white flag of the city’s paramedic corps, had been brought to the Tilles Center in an FDNY ambulance. Department pallbearers carried it inside as bagpipes played "Amazing Grace." Her elderly mother and father, Catherine and Frank Fuoco, in wheelchairs escorted by FDNY officers, trailed behind. 

Inside, EMS Chief Lillian Bonsignore recalled that Russo-Elling was the second EMS woman and mother to be violently killed in the last few years. EMT Yadira Arroyo, a 44-year-old mother of five, was killed in March 2017, run over by her ambulance following an altercation in the Bronx’s Soundview neighborhood with a man now charged with her murder. 

Bonsignore also called attention to Russo-Elling’s EMS friends and colleagues who died of Covid-related complications and those who continue to succumb to 9/11-related illnesses.

“Hundreds more of her EMS family members are assaulted by people they are just trying to help. It is impossible and frankly unacceptable to say that EMS work is not as dangerous as the other first-responder work,” she said, making a pitch for long-sought greater recognition of the city’s EMT corps. 

Bonsignore said her colleague was an elite rescue medic intent on passing on her knowledge. She noted that in addition to her 25-year tenure with the FDNY, Russo-Elling spent 30 years as a volunteer with the Huntington Community First Aid Squad.

“She committed herself to service of others and stayed true to her mission. Captain Russo was unstoppable and driven to be the very best,” Bonsignore said. 

“Her siren sang out loudly,” she continued, “reassuring everyone that help was on the way, the best was on the way. … Our sirens will continue to sing, a reminder to all the best, just like Alison, are on the way.” 

Russo-Elling’s father, gripped by grief, railed at the manner of his daughter’s death even as he recounted her selflessness. “That man murdered my daughter and she would be the first one to come to his aid if he ever needed help. He left her lying there on the street like a rag doll that was just discarded,” he said. 

“She laid there, motionless on the ground as he sauntered away,” he said. “I couldn’t hear her cry out, ‘Mom, Dad, help!” 

But Russo-Elling’s own daughter, Danielle Fuoco, thanking those that shared well-wishes and stories that she said “helped fill the gaping holes that have left in our hearts,” asked that people set aside bitter thoughts. 

“She deserves to watch down on her daughter delivering a message of hope. Any hate created in your heart from this sudden calamity, I need you to remove that. I need you to replace it with love,” she said. “Do not let your thoughts be clouded by this act of sudden trauma. You need to replace it with honoring my mother for the hero that she was — hero that she is.