NYPD Community Affairs officers and NYPD Summeer Youth Employment Program members brightened the day of leukemia patient Hazeley Mena.
Photo courtesy of Jonathan Delgado
Officers with NYPD Community Affairs Bureau of Patrol Borough Queens South and NYPD Summer Youth Employment Program members brightened the day of 9-year-old leukemia patient Hazeley Mena on Aug. 5 in Jamaica.
Mena, who loves Elsa from the movie “Frozen,” was diagnosed with leukemia last December and is scheduled for a stem cell transplant on Aug. 15.
Det. Tanya Duhaney said how she found out about Mena’s condition was “crazy.”
Duhaney recalled stopping behind a cab while driving through Jamaica. The detective saw a young girl leaving the cab with her mother and walking into her building and noticed that the girl appeared to be in bad health.
She asked the cab driver about the girl and he told Duhaney that Mena had cancer and was returning home from a chemo treatment. She then asked if he had Mena’s mom’s phone number. Unfortunately, the cabbie didn’t have the number.
“So that night, I couldn’t sleep,” Duhaney recalled. “This little girl kept flashing through my head.”
Determined to find Mena and her family, Duhaney returned to the building the next day. She knocked on doors asking neighbors if they knew a little girl with leukemia, but nobody knew her.
“As I was exiting her building, Hazeley, her mom and grandmother were coming back from treatment,” Duhaney said.
Duhaney asked Mena’s mom, Jennifer Loar, if the NYPD could visit her daughter to brighten her spirits. Hazeley’s mom was all for it. She told the 20-year NYPD veteran that Mena was sad about the upcoming surgery.
“So, that’s why we came back today to give her a little party and to cheer her up,” Duhaney said.
According to the American Cancer Society, leukemia is the most common cancer in children and teens, accounting for almost one out of three cancers.
Leukemia symptoms include fatigue,…
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