‘They are truly heroes’

Sanitary District 1 truck No. 33 workers Mark Magliaro, Anthony Alfano and Manny Azcona III had picked up the trash on Prescott Place in North Woodmere and were headed to another street on their route at 8:30 a.m. on Nov. 5, when their work day literally took a U-turn.
“We heard screaming from [what sounded like] every direction on the block,” said Magliaro, a 12-year veteran of the district, a trained emergency medical technician and a volunteer firefighter for the Inwood Fire Department for the past 18 years.
The three men, all residents of Inwood, stopped the truck, went back down the street and saw Janine Joseph, 61, in the road and bleeding. “It looked like she had crossed the street, chasing us,” said Alfano, who has worked for the district for 22 years and has been an Inwood firefighter for nearly eight.
“She slipped out of her shoes and fell,” Magliaro added.
He and Alfano quickly transformed from sanitation employees to first responders as they worked to stabilize the woman, who was bleeding, and checked her for a possible head injury and concussion. Azcona dialed 911. “We sought to control the bleeding,” Magliaro said. “She was scared.”

Joseph had brought out her trash after the truck had passed her house and was trying to get their attention, according to Samuel Salnave, who lives in the house with her. “Her feet got crossed and she tripped and fell,” he said. “They helped her. I heard the noise and they knocked on the door. They put her in a kitchen chair.”
With the back door of her June Court home open, Ayala Ferrara, who can see Prescott Place from her house, also heard the screams. She ran out on her deck and saw the sanitation workers holding the woman. “She was upset and confused,” Ferrara recounted. “The sanitation workers had sat her down, evaluated her and called 911. They had such compassion.”
A Nassau County police ambulance responded and took the woman to South Nassau Communities Hospital in Oceanside, where she was treated for a bloody nose and cuts on her face.
The crew’s actions weren’t a surprise to their boss, District Superintendent George Pappas. “We instill in our employees to help people in need,” he said. “I’m very proud of their reactions, and that they took the appropriate action.”
Ferrara, who has lived in her house for 25 years, said that many sanitation crews have collected the trash in her neighborhood, but the daily service of these three men, aside from their good deed, is noteworthy. “They always greet you with a smile and kind word,” she wrote in a letter she sent to District Commissioner Irving J. Kaminetsky the day after the incident. “They go above and beyond. Their quick response and thoughtful instinct to help made all the difference in the world.”
“They are truly heroes,” Ferrara told the Herald.
Four years ago, while working a route in Lawrence, Magliaro came to the aid of a woman who had fallen and injured her eye.
“We were doing what we were trained to do as an Inwood firefighter,” Alfano said of last week’s incident.
Sanitary District 1 residents have occasionally griped about the service they have received. But Salnave said he has not had any problems, and added that he even got a call from Pappas, who asked how Joseph was doing. “It’s not just about the garbage,” Salnave said.

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