Someone up there is keeping an ear out for prayers about Police Officer Carlos Olmedo.
A week after a motorcycle slammed into him as he chased down a crew of car thieves, the four-year NYPD veteran is getting stronger, cops at the 62nd Precinct said this week.
“He’s showing some steady improvement,” said Inspector Michael Rooney, Olmedo’s commanding officer. “He’s showing movement in all of his extremities and he’s making some facial expressions, but we’re still just waiting and hoping for the best.”
By late Monday, Olmedo has spent the last nine days in a coma after suffering devastating injuries sustained at the corner of 84th Street and 20th Avenue on May 16.
Olmedo and his partner, Officer Marlon Key, were investigating a report of a stolen car at 1 am when they saw the three thieves speed off. The cops pulled the suspects over, but the thieves abandoned the vehicle and ran off.
Olmedo was chasing down one of the men on foot when he was struck by a passing motorcycle.
Responding paramedics rushed him to Lutheran Medical Center on 55th Street and Second Avenue with extensive head injuries. The operator of the motorcycle was also hospitalized with a broken knee and some internal injuries, police said.
On May 18, cops, friends and family members converged on Lutheran Medical Center at a special vigil to pray for Olmedo’s recovery.
Holding her young son Jerimiah on her hip, Olmedo’s wife Abagail told the crowd she was overwhelmed by all the support.
“It was a very impressive ceremony,” Rooney said. “It was quite emotional.”
Prosecutors said that indictments were pending against the three alleged car thieves apprehended that night. They are all facing charges of assault in the first degree and criminal possession of stolen property.
