Hero of the Day: Central Park EMT volunteers as coronavirus medic

Volunteer ꦺEMT♏ Timmy Li normally spends his free time treating injured runners and cyclists in Central Park.

But as the Big Apple gets crushed with 911 calls due to the coronavirus pandemic, he’s now devoting his nights and weekends to far more serious emergencies, far outside the park’s borders.

“When it was declared a pandemic, I told myself, ‘as long I am not sick myself and as long as I’m available, I will continue to take shifts and calls,’” Li, 30, told The Post. 

“Pretty much every 911 call right now is COVID related. Almost everything. We still have the injuries, the car crashes, but almost everything is a potential COVID call.” 

The Queens resident, who also works full-time as a clinical researcher at Northwell Health, is part of the Central Park Medical Unit, a team of 150 volunteer EMTs who typically patrol the park’s 843 acres.

But as emergency calls skyrocket past previous records and hordes of EMTs call out sick, the team has now stepped up to handle emergency calls across Manhattan under the FDNY’s Mutual Aid system. 

“We’re working almost 24/7,” Li said. “It’s definitely challenging, physically exhausting, and mentally exhausting knowing that a lot of people are dying.”

The medic, who holds a doctorate in epidemiology, said his unit is used to disaster r꧒esponse, but the coronavirus is a whole different monster.

“We have responded to things like 9/11, Hurricane Sandy, the blackout and the heat wave last summer. And those feel a little different in that those, the risk of me getting infected or injured was low. But this is very real,” Li said.

“[With] 9/11 there was a finite number of patients that needed help. This is just increasing every day, and you don’t know when the end is.”

Li started his 11-year stint with the CPMU — which has been free to patients since 1975 — on a college summer💦 break, and now helps train new medics.

“I immediately fell in love with it. I really enjoy working with the people, especially the people who have a job that’s non-medical related. We have lawyers, we have people in business administration, we have actors, dancers. I just think it’s very diverse, and we all come together for this common goal to help the community,” the first responder said.

Li said agreeing to work on the front lines of the med🌺ical crisis was scary, but he knew he had to help.

“This is what we signed up for. Becoming an EMT means you’re supposed to be helping those in need at a time of crisis,” Li said.

“This is what we trained for and this is what we do.”

Do you have a nominee for The Post’s Hero of the Day? E-mail heroes@btc365-fut♉ebol.com