‘They will never be forgotten:’ Rock Hill firefighter joins flag wavers, preps for NYC Marathon

Seventy-eight.

That’s the highest floor firefighters reached in the South Tower of the World Trade Center before the 110-story building collapsed on Sept. 11, 2001. And, it’s the number of floors Rock Hill firefighter Fernando Diaz and other firemen will scale Saturday as they run up and down the stairs in Charlotte’s Duke Energy Center in their gear.

When they reach 78, they’ll keep going — all the way to 110.

The trek won’t stop there for Diaz, 26, a two-year veteran of the Rock Hill Fire Department. In November, he’ll run the New York City Marathon.

“I want people to know they will never be forgotten,” Diaz said of the more than 300 firefighters killed in the 2001 terror attacks. “I feel like it’s my duty to be out there and carry on the duty of those men and women who died that day.”

Each local firefighter participating in the Duke Energy stair climb completes it in memory of a firefighter who died on 9/11. Diaz was assigned New York City firefighter Gary Geidel, a 20-year veteran of the department who was just a few shifts away from retirement when he volunteered to work an overtime shift the morning of the attacks.

Diaz said curiosity got the best of him, and after his first climb, he researched Geidel.

“This was somebody’s dad. This was somebody’s husband,” he said. “I reached out to the family a few years ago. We keep in contact now.”

Diaz always wanted to work in civil service. He was preparing to join the Marines when he went to school for criminal justice, but realized then that police work wasn’t for him. Just a few years ago before joining the Rock Hill Fire Department, he says, he was “in a bad place,” battling depression and weight gain.

“One day I got off shift from my part-time job,” he recalled. “I said, ‘I don’t want to do this anymore.’”

He called a local volunteer fire department, which sent him to Rock Hill’s fire academy. At the end of it, Rock Hill Fire hired him.

Since becoming a firefighter, Diaz said, he’s lost nearly 100 pounds. He’ll be running in the New York City marathon under a charity program, and will be running and raising money for the Wounded Warrior Project and the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation.

Diaz will also be raising money for Geidel’s family and the family of fellow Rock Hill firefighter Chuck Mozingo, who is battling cancer, and reached out to both families for the OK. His goal is $5,000.

As the race draws closer, Diaz said he’s been talking with Geidel’s family more frequently. He wants to meet them while he’s in New York for the race.

“His only daughter just got married,” he said. “Where the rest of the world has moved on and tried to adjust, they still haven’t.”

Diaz hopes running in the race and raising the money will keep Gidel’s memory – and the memories of hundreds of other first responders who died that day – alive.

On Friday, Diaz donned his turnout gear and flew an American flag from the Sutton Road bridge over Interstate 77 Friday for the 14th anniversary of the attacks.

He was waving the same flag that Leonard Farrington took from his home 14 years ago and waved from the same I-77 overpass. Farrington died in January 2012, and the bridge was later renamed the Leonard A. Farrington 9/11 Memorial Bridge” in his honor.

“It gives me goosebumps to see all these cars honking horns, blinking lights and waving,” Farrington’s widow Betty said Friday as she stood next to Diaz and waved a flag. “I know Leonard can see what’s going on and I know he’s happy that they’re keeping this up.”

Betty Farrington said her husband’s health was declining, and he had an oxygen tank the last two years he stood on the bridge on Sept. 11.

“He had trouble walking, but he came,” she said. “I’m 88, so I have to keep doing it one more year to catch up with him.”

Want to help?

Diaz is hoping to meet a $5,000 goal for the 26.2-mile race. So far, he’s raised about $800. To donate, visit www.crowdrise.com/Firewatch.

This story was originally published September 11, 2015 at 12:16 PM with the headline "‘They will never be forgotten:’ Rock Hill firefighter joins flag wavers, preps for NYC Marathon."