A sea of blue intertwined with thousands of New Yorkers paying their final respects to fallen EMT, Yadira Arroyo, in a funeral procession on March 25. Arroyo died after being run over by a crazed man who hijacked her ambulance in the Soundview section of the Bronx on March 16.

Thousands of firefighters and paramedics from several states lined University Avenue outside of the St. Nicholas of Tolentine Roman Catholic Church, at the corner of University Avenue and West Fordham Road in the Fordham section of the Bronx, to say goodbye to the 14-year veteran of the FDNY.

Maria Perez, a mourner, had developed a unique relationship with Arroyo over the past year. Perez was suffering from a heart ailment and had collapsed at various locations on 10 separate occasions. Arroyo was there to bring her back to life.

“She even went to Brooklyn to pick me up, you hear me? She went to Brooklyn to pick me up and bring me to the hospital in the Bronx,” Perez recalled as tears welled in her eyes.

Having worked at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine since 2003, Efrain Gonzalez III remembered Arroyo as she brought patients to the hospital. “She was the one who really paid attention to detail and she had a tremendous respect for her patients,” Gonzalez said.

Dignitaries from New York City, including Mayor Bill de Blasio, FDNY Commissioner Daniel Nigro, and other local lawmakers were on hand to pay their respects. Arroyo’s distraught EMT partner Monique Williams, and Arroyo’s son Kenneth Robles, 19, were also on hand.

“I know death came for my mother several times, but she ignored it,” Robles said. “This time God said, ‘No, I’m serious.'”

Arroyo leaves behind a boyfriend and five sons.

Police have charged Jose Gonzalez, 25, with first- and second-degree murder, manslaughter and robbery in connection with Arroyo’s death.

Gonzalez has a string of 31 arrests, and according to his family, a history of mental illness.

But police reportedly see it a different way.

“We don’t think Gonzalez is so crazy,” said a police source involved in the investigation. “He jumps off the back of the ambulance that’s stopped at a light to rob a kid of his backpack.

And that’s when they pull over when the people tell them about him robbing the kid. The victim goes around to look and he’s not there because he’s up the block robbing this kid. Then he’s back saying he hurt his hand and to take him to the hospital. She yells at him to give the kid his backpack back. Instead, he runs around and jumps in and backs up over her. “He’s not as crazy as his lawyer is making him out to be.”

Additional reporting by Bob Kappstatter