Re- introduction 2020 (first time translated in english)

Rafael Hernandez was a born hero. He had the wild urge to help people in danger, a trait that let him nourish his soul with noble values and instincts, born of the common man’s struggle to survive.  He was born in Mexico City. Early on, as a boy, he watched his father step out of a fire squad to put out buildings engulfed in flames. He was able to shape early on an unconquerable drive to rescue others in critical, life-threatening situations.

There’s and old saying that claims that your best neighbor and your brother are one and the same.   Hernandez thought about that the morning the belly of the first plane hijacked by Al Qaeda terrorists split the sky above his head and crashed into the North tower of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.

Hernandez, a firefighter, was a New Yorker by adoption. From his father, he learned the trade of saving people and, relying on these vital skills, he served as a rescuer in the earthquakes of Mexico City, Nicaragua and Guatemala, in the eruption of the Ruiz volcano, as well, that buried the city of Armero in Colombia and, in Louisiana, during the onslaught of hurricane Katrina. 

Hernandez then embarked somehow on a mission to rescue himself.  It happened that day when he, with empty pockets and his firefighter badge around his neck, migrated to New York City to try to make a living so he could raise his own family, his three sons, whom he loved from afar and often called.

So the day he saw the towers collapse in the midst of fire and clouds spewing smoke and shreds of metal, Hernandez did not hesitate for an instant to bolt in the opposite direction of the thousands who were fleeing. The man born hero had awakened. He knew that his duty demanded that he  place himself at the heart of the cataclysm.

On the 11th day of September, 2001, Hernandez rushed into the North tower to rescue people caught inside the burning building. That same night, he decided to stay at ground zero. He was there for more than two months displacing debris and tracking any sign of life.

Over the next few years, the health of Hernandez -that dark-skinned man with the body of a wrestler- completely fell apart as a result of the asbestos particles he vacuumed up in the ruins of the World Trade Center. When a vicious cough attacked him, the U.S. government sent him bottles of medicine marked “Health for Heroes” and he was honored along with thousands of first responders, nurses, doctors, firefighters and police. 

In the midst of honors, Hernandez died in the Fall of 2011, having received no compensation from the government, not a single dollar. The figure of the anonymous hero emerges twenty years later, when another type of threat torments the world.

The coronavirus is the enemy that has come to test governments, presidents and world powers, at a time when the back ranks jump to the front line the frontlines of the emergency, men and women forged in the same mold as Hernandez. The vocation to help. Love for one another. Life as an instrument to save other lives.

Many of these people are immigrants and, like Hernandez, they came to the United States empty handed and full of the hope, commitment, gratitude, will and generosity that often accompany the character of those who adopt a land and make it their and that of their children.

Governments come and go. Presidents leave power. New generations of politicians will come to replace the current ones. All of that is transitory.  Instead, with every global crisis or emergency the vitality of society is renewed; the ranks of people behind the structures of power: individual worlds, small anonymous heroes who, at the end of the day, are the ones who articulate, break through, push, put their soul and body into  it for you, for me, for others, for a whole country, whenever there is a need for help.

Doctors, nurses, stretcher bearers and first responders risk their lives in hospitals crowded with people with lungs eaten away by the virus, just as they did it twenty years ago at the World Trade Center.

White, yellow, blond, brown or black.  With a medal of the Virgin of Guadalupe or Jesus Christ in their wallet. Or what is more: with or without a green card, with or without a visa, they are there, serving on the front lines.

The story of Hernandez reduces the greatness of empires and civilizations to the most common and extraordinary: people on the road to survival, helping other people.

This story consists of three parts. If you would like to read part one, please click on the button below.