MIAMI (WSVN) - In September 2001, local firefighters were called to help after the attacks. Robert Suarez and his father, who shares the same name, were among those who answered.
Suarez said his journey to that moment was years in the making because he grew up going to work with his father at Miami-Dade Fire Rescue.
“As a young child, I was a victim in rubble piles, being searched for and simulated, dogs trying to find me in the rubble,” Suarez said.
He followed in his father’s footsteps and became a firefighter at City of Miami Fire Rescue. He and his father were both working at different departments on the same fateful day in our country’s history.
“It was just a matter of a few hours before I realized not only is this something that I’m watching on TV, this is something we’re getting called for,” Suarez said.
They got called to the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. Suarez, who was 24-years-old at the time, remembers pulling other first responders from the rubble.
“We were able to bring him out intact,” Suarez said. “We weren’t able to do that with everybody there.”
He worried how his father was doing, after not seeing him or hearing from him for days. Luckily, he ran into someone from his father’s team.
“He said ‘Hey, your father is on the other side, he just took a meal break. You can go see him at over at this cafe,’ that was feeding some of the responders right outside the rubble pile, and I think that’s where we first met,” Suarez said.
Their first meeting in New York was captured by a disposable camera.
“It was pretty crazy, you know, there was a lot going on at that moment,” Suarez said.
Twenty-five years later, City of Miami Fire Rescue continues its promise to never forget September 11 with a memorial– a beam from the World Trade Center.
Suarez’s father has reminders of his own at home, including the radiation mask he used.
He has been battling brain cancer for the last three years, and believes it is linked to his World Trade Center response. He says he is part of the World Trade Center Health Program, which has covered his medical bills.
“It is what it is. I’m not saying it is the tools of the trade, but it comes along with the job,” Suarez’s father said. “It is not a job. Firefighting is not a job, it is a career. It is a blessing if you get hired to be a firefighter.”
A man who once fought fires is now fighting a disease. Meanwhile, his son continues to serve, hoping to make his father, city, and country proud.
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