Bob Beckwith, a retired firefighter from Lengthy Island who aided within the seek for survivors after the terrorist assaults of Sept. 11, 2001, and who was catapulted to fame after images exhibiting him and President George W. Bush standing atop the rubble-strewn stays of a hearth truck turned symbols of the shocked nation’s grit, died on Sunday in Rockville Centre, N.Y. He was 91.
He died in hospice care after being handled for most cancers, his grandson Matthew stated.
After the assaults, Mr. Beckwith had placed on his outdated leather-based helmet and uniform and joined a brigade to clear particles at Floor Zero. When Mr. Bush visited the location on Sept. 14, Mr. Beckwith climbed atop the destroyed hearth truck to get a greater view of the command middle the place the president was supposed to talk.
Then, he was requested by Karl Rove, the deputy White Home chief of employees, and Secret Service brokers to climb atop the truck and bounce on it to check its stability. He did, and was then requested to come back down. However as a substitute of going to the command middle, the president climbed aboard the wreck and invited Mr. Beckwith to share the spot, and the historic second, with him whereas he addressed emergency service staff.
Mr. Beckwith handed the president a bullhorn, however among the staff complained that they couldn’t hear.
“I can hear you, the rest of the world hears you,” Mr. Bush shouted to the gang in a rousing deal with beamed on reside TV, “and the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon.”
The group responded by chanting “U.S.A.! U.S.A.!”
By the point Mr. Beckwith returned residence to Baldwin, N.Y., later that day, he was a neighborhood hero. After {a photograph} of the second appeared on the entrance web page of The Each day Information the following morning and one other one of many identical scene made the duvet of Time journal two weeks later, he had been reworked from a firefighter dwelling a quiet retired life right into a stoic paradigm of New York Metropolis’s resilience and America’s fortitude.
Mr. Beckwith spent solely at some point volunteering on the web site — he had defied his household by going within the first place — and afterward pals warned him {that a} man nearing 70 was in no situation to endure the backbreaking work that may proceed for months.
However as a substitute of returning to retirement, he turned one thing of a star and a spokesman for quite a few charities, the New York Firefighters Burn Center Foundation specifically.
Mr. Beckwith had a first-edition print of the Time cowl {photograph} and an American flag given to him by the president and stored them in a show field at residence. He donated his outdated leather-based helmet — which he had worn to get previous police and Nationwide Guard roadblocks on his solution to Floor Zero — to the 9/11 Memorial & Museum on the former Commerce Heart web site. He additionally remained in contact with the Bush household, whom he visited on the White Home.
On the White Home on Feb. 25, 2002, Mr. Beckwith and Gov. George E. Pataki of New York introduced the president with the bullhorn he had used to deal with the emergency staff.
“When the terrorists attacked, Bob suited back up and, like so many brave first responders, raced toward the danger to save and search for others,” Mr. Bush stated in an announcement launched on Monday from Dallas. “His courage represented the defiant, resilient spirit of New Yorkers and Americans after 9/11.”
Robert Beckwith was born on April 16, 1932, within the Astoria part of Queens to Thomas and Cecilia (McHugh) Beckwith. His father was an electrician, his mom a phone operator.
After graduating from Rice Excessive College in Harlem and serving within the Navy within the Fifties, he was assigned to Ladder Firm 117 in Astoria for his first 23 years as a firefighter and with Ladder Firm 164 in Douglaston, Queens, for the remaining seven. Neither firm suffered casualties within the terrorist assault, however the sons of a few of his pals have been reported lacking or useless.
On the morning of the assault, a grandson of Mr. Beckwith’s had been hit by a automobile whereas driving his bicycle to highschool. Mr. Beckwith was watching tv on the hospital when the towers collapsed.
Along with his spouse, Barbara (Armband) Beckwith, he’s survived by 4 kids, Richard, Stephen and Bob Beckwith and Christine Clancy; 10 grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren. Two different sons, Joseph and Tom, died.
