As the sec­ond tower col­lapsed, and a thick wall of white ash filled the dis­as­ter site, Robert Gayer just got there. He imme­di­ately started to dis­trib­ute water bot­tles among the res­cue work­ers. Once the water ran out, he asked a cop if he could do some­thing. The police­man replied: “If you are not pre­pared to die, you bet­ter get the hell out of here!” Robert insisted: “What do you need me to do?” and he said, “Go ask that fire­man by the pit over there.” The fire­man was cry­ing; you could hear the beep­ing noise com­ing from all his dead col­leagues under­neath the pile.  Robert took a water tank and they pro­ceeded to go into the burn­ing pit try­ing to find peo­ple: he would spray the water while the fire­man searched for the dead and alive.

Robert vol­un­teered on the site for four days and stopped only when he started to feel sick and didn’t need to be there any­more. Shortness of breath, cough, severe post stress dis­or­der and insom­nia were the result of a tragic com­bi­na­tion of long term expo­sure to toxic dust and ter­ri­fy­ing images of body parts. Ten years later, Robert went from being a res­cue worker to being clas­si­fied as a vic­tim due to a series of dis­eases such as COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease), RAD (Reactive Airway Disease), severe sinus attacks, nose bleeds and oth­ers that he devel­oped as a result of his recov­ery work at ground zero. Nevertheless, he tries to keep a pos­i­tive attitude.

V:     How did 9/11 change you?

G: I have become much more aware what life is all about. I try to tell to all of my friends and fam­ily how much I appre­ci­ate hav­ing them in my life. When I speak at schools, I tell kids to be the best they can be. I tell them that fam­ily and friends are the most impor­tant parts of your life, espe­cially fam­ily; it is so impor­tant to stay in touch and tell them you love them because you never know what is going to happen.

V:     What is your rela­tion­ship with the cof­fee industry?

G: I love the cof­fee indus­try and all the friends I have in it. I have done a lot of pro­mot­ing with a com­pany called European Roasteries. They are one great bunch of peo­ple.  We’ve devel­oped some brand names under the name of National Coffee Roasters (Café Classic & Donut Shop). We spe­cial­ize in doing high qual­ity cof­fee, also the new craze: the sin­gle serve cof­fee & tea pods.

In addi­tion to cof­fee, my big pas­sion is cook­ing. I love to cook for my friends and fam­ily. I try to be cre­ative and put on a show for them. I found that using cof­fee as a rub for cook­ing is just phe­nom­e­nal! Take some ground cof­fee and sprin­kle it on any of your favorite meat before grilling, it makes the meat ten­der and delicious.

V:     How do you feel at ground zero now and what mes­sage would you like to send people?

G:     When I go down there (ground zero), I have mixed emo­tions. I feel very ter­ri­to­r­ial over that area, know­ing in my heart what it means to so many peo­ple and how many peo­ple died there.  As far as the mes­sage – never for­get 9/11.

One of the things that really both­ered me after 9/11 was how patri­otic every­one got; every­body had flags hung on their cars and homes, but as time moved for­ward, you started see­ing the flags on the side of the road. Their patri­o­tism seemed to start fad­ing. It will soon be ten years, and peo­ple tend to for­get the incom­pre­hen­si­ble destruc­tion and the shat­tered lives from that day, but they shouldn’t. This coun­try needs to slow down; every­body is going 50 miles an hour in too many dif­fer­ent direc­tions. My wish that they would take the time to smell the roses and look at the world and say, “how lucky we are”. Try to appre­ci­ate every day that you wake up and see the sun shin­ing. What a great coun­try we live in!

After I got off the phone with Robert, I have not been able to stop think­ing about his incred­i­ble story. It made me think about how valu­able it is to help oth­ers and to appre­ci­ate every sec­ond of this life and fam­ily and friends around us. It is rare that you meet some­one so com­pas­sion­ate about peo­ple, no mat­ter what coun­try, reli­gion, and edu­ca­tion they are from. Robert risked his life for his wife, two daugh­ters and oth­ers on the morn­ing of 9/11 while most of us were glued to the TV screens! I hope many will learn some­thing from his story. Heroes are to be remembered.

Robert has received numer­ous recog­ni­tion awards from President George W. Bush and New York Senator Charles Schumer. He made appear­ances on The Sopranos, Law and Order, The Whoopee Show, and on an inde­pen­dent movie with Danny Aiello. Robert’s story was also part of a best­selling book called, Never Forget: an Oral History of September 11, 2001, by Mitchell Fink.

Robert has devel­oped a very seri­ous emo­tional respect for our mil­i­tary and those who served. He has a true pas­sion for his coun­try and gets very sen­ti­men­tal over his patriotism.

Our edi­to­r­ial office sends him warm wishes for the future and a major “thank you” for his hero­ism at ground zero.