FORT LAUDERDALE-HOLLYWOOD INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT, FLA. (WSVN) - A Plantation firefighter returned to South Florida to a warm welcome after serving in the Middle East amid the Israel-Hamas war.
There was a special surprise waiting for Lt. Aston Bright with the Plantation Fire Department as he stepped back on U.S. soil and walked through the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, Wednesday afternoon.
“So good to see you,” Bright said to his friend Amanda Green as they embraced.
“So glad you’re home,” said Green.
Bright spent the past two weeks volunteering in Israel with the Emergency Volunteers Project.
“There was a rocket strike here,” he said in a cellphone video.
Bright said he was in the middle of it.
“I was in the Gaza envelope for most of the time, so I was within just a few miles from Gaza,” he said. “We were running calls from fires that were started from rockets.”
As he helped people in Israel, his friends back home said they were worried about his safety every single day.
“Not a lot of people would put their ass on the line for a belief that you have, and he did,” said Michael Yavner, a friend of the firefighter.
“I’m very overwhelmed by his selflessness and just – it wasn’t easy for him, and he really showed up. He showed up,” said Green.
“There’s just a lot of people who were really worried about me, and it was not easy, but it was just an experience. It was great,” said Bright as he fought back tears.
It was a mission that, Bright said, he would undertake again.
“I was sad to leave because there’s still a lot of work to be done, and there’s 240 hostages still missing, so it’s just a terrible situation,” he said.
While he is proud to have helped, Bright is glad to be home, and so are his friends and fellow firefighters.
“We’ve known this about Aston for a long time. He is committed to helping others,” said Plantation Fire Deputy Chief Joel Gordon. “He’s committed to saving lives, and wherever he can do it, whenever he can do it, under any conditions that he can do it in, he will.”
Bright said EDP has deployed 65 firefighters from 11 states since the beginning of October.
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