VIDEO: A female FDNY EMT was assaulted at the scene of a three-alarm fire in the Bronx that damaged seven businesses.
The fire broke out on Westchester Avenue in the Parkchester section just before 6:30 a.m. Thursday, right near the elevated subway tracks.
The fire appears to have started in a 99-cent store.
While no one was injured in the fire, an FDNY EMT was assaulted at the scene.
Heavy smoke spread over the neighborhood and across an adjacent elevated subway line, where passing trains were slowed.
FDNY Chief of EMS Operations Lillian Bonsignore released a statement calling the incident, "unbelievable and despicable."
"We are out here ready to save the lives of the people who depend on us, out in the freezing cold while our firefighters are fighting this fire," she said.
Bonsignore says the female EMT was flagged down by someone who said they were in need of help. The 32-year-old EMT saw the man collapsing on the sidewalk.