The Circle of Service
Retired Perth Amboy Local 13 offi cer helps
swear in an offi cer whose life he saved years ago
Perth Amboy Local 13 retired detective Kenneth Puccio holds Leonel Tejera while being recognized with a lifesaving resolution by the Perth Amboy City
Council in 1989.
■ BY AMBER RAMUNDO
Kenneth Puccio will remember May
4, 1989, as the night he was in the when
place at the right time. There are plen-
ty of responses that Puccio remembers
from his 35-year career on the job and
as a member of Perth Amboy Local 13,
but none quite compare to the night he
saved the life of an infant who would
grow to impact his life in more ways than
one.
The highlight of Puccio’s career began
with panic. The young officer was just
five years on the job when a car came
skidding to a halt next to where he was
parked on Amboy Avenue.
“I remember it like it was yesterday,”
Puccio says. “A woman jumped out of
the car and yelled, ‘My baby’s not breath-
ing.’”
The mother handed her 14-month-old
infant to Puccio, depending on the offi-
cer to do something to save her baby’s
life. Puccio quickly determined that the
child was in full cardiac arrest and imme-
diately began to perform CPR. Both Puc-
cio and the frantic mother, Carmen Mo-
rales, were able to exhale in relief when
the infant suddenly coughed, and then
gasped for breath.
That’s when Puccio realized that he
was so preoccupied with saving the baby
in his arms, he never got the chance to
radio for backup. Unable to put the child
down, Puccio made an instinctive deci-
sion on the quickest and safest way to
travel the six blocks down the road to the
hospital.
“I told the mother, ‘You’re going to
have to drive the police car to the hospi-
tal,’” Puccio shares.
It was probably the only time during
Puccio’s career that he instructed a civil-
ian on the scene to get behind the wheel
of his patrol car, but it was a crucial de-
cision that helped save the life of Leonel
Tejera.
The vivid memories of that night
flashed in Puccio’s mind on Jan. 14, when
the retired detective stood before Tejera,
nearly 30 years later, to pin his Perth Am-
boy Police Department badge number
on the newly sworn officer.
“The highlight of my career comes
full circle,” Puccio recognizes. “I’ve been
lucky enough in my career to do a lot of
different things, but pinning the badge
on Leonel has to stand out as one of the
proudest moments.”
For Leonel, becoming a law enforce-
ment officer is part of his initiative to
CONTINUED ON PAGE 44
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■ FEBRUARY 2019 43