He must have insisted on the search mission, knowing full well what could have occurred. And it did.
Truly horrific.
A Miami firefighter working at the site of the Florida building collapse Thursday was among a crew of search workers who recovered the remains of his own daughter, a report said Friday.
The grieving father wrapped the 7-year-old victim of last week’s Champlain Towers collapse in his jacket and placed a small US flag on the gurney, according to WPLG-TV. The child’s uncle was also among the rescuers.
“It goes without saying that every night since this last Wednesday has been immensely difficult for everybody, and particularly the families that have been impacted,” Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said Friday.
“But last night was uniquely different,” Cava said. “These men and women are paying an enormous human toll each and every day.”
The discovery was made Thursday evening. Neither the young collapse victims nor her dad were identified by officials.
That’s heart-wrenching.
Nigtmare. This is the fear of small town Fire fighters First responders.
That is the worst.
Poor Man & his daughter.
Most FFs work where they live.
They’re part of the community.
So this kind of thing happens more often than you might think.
And it’s terrible every time.
May the Lord send His Comfortor to touch this grieving father, give him the blessing of being able to forget her as she was found and remember her as they were through life. May He cover this stricken family with His mercy and grant them the Blessed Assurance that their dear child is this day present with Him in Paradise, and that they may be reunited in their time in their Heavenly home, where they will be together in the light of His love and be joyous indeed.
May the Lord further touch each and every one that is missing a loved one today, may He show His grace to the fallen and His love to those who suffer this earthy separation, and may their loved ones be found very soon so they can be properly mourned, decently buried, and some closure given these families at the last.
And may the Lord reach to all those who were with this father at the moment of this horrible discovery, that they all may comfort their stricken brother, and that having accompanied he and his charge from the field, that they somehow find the strength to set what they saw, heard, and felt aside for the time being, square their shoulders, and return to their grim but necessary task of finding the next daughter, the next son, the next father, mother, grandma, grandpa, sister, brother, aunt and uncle, until all the victims are accounted fir and returned to their kin.
May those rescuers, when they are replaced for a time by others of their company be able to return then to their hearth and home and look upon their own living families with joy and appreciation, and delight anew in the love of life after looking upon so much death, and that they be able to look upon their own loved ones without their hearts being darkened by this tragedy to where they can’t face their own children without thinking of the pain they so recently were exposed to.
And most of all, dear Lord, please hold Your protecting hand over all those that work in this macabre toil, that they be safe as they work in the looming shadows of yet unstable structural members as they root through perilously chaotic debris, that this awful tragedy not only be not allowed to claim another life, but that none are so much as injured by it.
It is much to ask, o Lord, but as large as this terrible loss is, we know that You are larger still, so on Your instructions we ask You show Your love in these and all other things said and unsaid related to this awful incident, and we ask it all in the merciful, loving name of Your Son Jesus, Amen.
God Bless them all,
SNS
The next time you or I are tempted to despair of our “bad day”, remember…
May God reach down his hand to hold this man and his family in the palm of it.
“Neither the young collapse victims nor her dad were identified by officials.”
Nor should they be.
Every neighborhood in a big city is a small town.
This breaks our hearts because suddenly it’s not far removed and institutional. Maybe it never should be. Life is meant to be lived smaller and closer than moat of America has been doing in the last decades/century. Then, maybe, we really could all get along. Or, at least all quit putting up with the feckin’ eejits.
He obviously knew that she would be discovered – not necessarily by him – and he needed closure. I can’t even imagine his emotional state. Please God comfort him and his family.
My dad worked for Bob Petersen of Petersen Publishing (Guns & Ammo magazine). Bob built an empire, was always near the top of the Forbes wealthy list, despite growing up poor and uneducated.
His two sons were the treasures of his life.
When his boys were 10 and 11, they accompanied their parents on a business trip, along with others, via private jets.
The boys decided to fly with another family in the group who had kids of similar ages.
Very tragically, that jet crashed in the Rockies, killing all aboard.
Bob was the kind of true man who insisted on going with the search party to personally identify and retrieve his sons.
Bob Petersen was brilliant, kind, caring, generous, and above all, a loving and courageous father.
I can’t imagine his pain but understand his desire to find her himself. God bless and comfort this family.
So many families shaken to the core.
May the Lord’s strength and comfort shower over them.
No matter how horrific I would still have searched and would rather have found my own child than some stranger. I am sure his daughter is happy her father found her.