Although he has been shot at and almost stabbed in the past, Thanksgiving and Christmas hold an even more special meaning this year for College of Staten Island Campus Peace Officer Sgt. Alberto Rivera.

The veteran officer, who has been with campus security for more than five years, almost lost his life when his patrol vehicle burst into flames and he was trapped inside.

Rivera was at the college on Victory Blvd. in the Willowbrook section of Staten Island at about 4:30 a.m. Oct. 30 when the life-threatening incident occurred.

He and Cpl. Robert Bjornholm had just completed putting up cones in the college’s parking lot for an event scheduled for the following day, Rivera said, when he drove his patrol vehicle to an area in the lot where he could survey the entire area.

Bjornholm, in another car, continued patrolling the sprawling campus. But only minutes after he left Rivera, he heard an anguished call from Campus Peace Officer Greg Rodriguez, the radio dispatcher.

Rodriguez had heard someone on the radio saying frantically: “Help me! I’m going to die! Help me! Help me!” The dispatcher sought to identify the caller or his location, but was unable to do so.

Bjornholm went to the parking lot where he had left Rivera, saw smoke and fire pouring from his patrol car, and advised Rodriguez to call the Fire Department. Sgt. Joseph Morton, who heard Bjornholm, rushed out to the parking lot to help.

Both officers tried to wrench open the doors of the burning vehicle but were unable to do so. Bjornholm smashed the rear window of the car and Rivera’s head appeared, gasping for air.

The officers grabbed Rivera’s shoulders and dragged him out of the burning car through the window and to safety.

After the Fire Department arrived and extinguished the fire, emergency service technicians rushed Rivera to Staten Island Hospital’s burn unit, where he remained a week for treatment of smoke inhalation, a burned arm and a broken foot.

Recovering in his West Brighton home from his narrow brush
with death, Sgt. Alberto Rivera recalled the fateful morning he was trapped in his burning vehicle, and how close he came to joining the thousands who lost their lives in the World Trade Center attacks.

The 47-year-old officer said he was in a parking lot at the College of Staten Island with the air conditioning on and listening to news on the car radio at about 4:30 a.m. Oct. 30. “I had the passenger window cracked about an inch, and was listening to the radio for about 10 minutes or so,” he said. “All of a sudden, the radio began making a crackling sound. I tried to turn it off and the car engine shut off.

“Then there was smoke coming in from under the dashboard, but when I tried to get out, the doors wouldn’t open because they were power doors. And the power windows wouldn’t roll down.”

Smoke began pouring into the car’s interior. Rivera said, “The doctor doesn’t know why I didn’t die of a heart attack.”

Rivera said he normally kept his two-way radio to his right on the front seat. But when the smoke billowed in, “I panicked and I slid over the try to get out through the passenger door, and the radio fell down on the floor.”

He couldn’t see because of the smoke and he tried desperately to get some air through the small crack in the open window as he tried unsuccessfully to pull the window down.

When he couldn’t do this, he got on his back and tried to kick the window out. “I broke my foot, from the heel to the middle of my foot,” he said.

He groped in the darkness for his lost radio, “and that’s when fire burned my arm.” He got up and started punching the window, but — despite his 275 pounds — was unsuccessful.

He continued searching for his radio and when he finally found it, “I started screaming for help. But the guys didn’t recognize my voice because the smoke was making my voice sound funny.”

Believing he was dying, Rivera said, “God take care of my children and my wife.” His associate and friend, Cpl. Robert Bjornholm, recognized the voice.

“I was dying; I almost passed out twice. I was putting my shirt over my face and it wasn’t helping. The flames were beginning to come from under the car and the hood of the car was on fire,” Rivera recalled.

When Bjornholm and Morton got to him, Rivera related, “the front tires on the car started to explode. I heard them outside screaming for me, but I couldn’t scream back. I just couldn’t breathe any more. Then I heard Bjornholm call my name, and he broke the window. I moved toward the sound. I stuck my head out the window and they grabbed me by my hair and shoulders and my belt, and they pulled me out.”

Rivera said Bjornholm “was leaning over me trying to protect me because he didn’t know if the car was going to explode.”

Only about five seconds after they pulled him to safety, “the whole interior of the car was on fire,” he said. “The firemen got there and put the fire out quickly, but the whole inside of the car had melted.”

Rivera is recovering at home with his wife, Kathleen, and son, Aidan, 5, and daughter, Caitlin, 9.

Rivera said he had been shot at by strikers when he was a security guard at a newspaper and someone had tried to stab him when he worked for a financial firm, but that this was the closest he had ever been to death.

He said, like those who survived the World Trade Center, he has been suffering from nightmares and can’t sleep. A therapist at the hospital told him it was worse for him than for them because he had been by himself.

“I always say kiss your kids before you leave the house, because you never know,” he advised.