Joliet firefighters take care of their ‘hermano’
June 21, 2012 9:20PM
Spanish firefighter Jose Antonio Romero posted a picture of himself in New Mexico this week. Romeo's first stop on his bicycle journey along Route 66 was at the Joliet Fire Department. | submitted photo
Updated: July 23, 2012 7:48AM
It’s truly turned out to be his camisa afortunada.
The C shift at Joliet Fire Station 1 had just finished its Memorial Day dinner when the crew saw a bicycle helmet move past the window.
The crew walked out to find a man wearing a road safety vest near a bicycle with loaded saddlebags. While the 32-year-old man appeared fit, they would’ve had trouble determining what kind of assistance the man needed if Nick Baffes hadn’t been able to speak Spanish.
It turned out Jose Antonio Romero, a firefighter in Seville, Spain, only wanted to see his first American fire station up close.
“When he said he was a fireman, we were a little skeptical, but he showed us an I.D. card,” Matt Fleck said. “Then we found his profile on Facebook and saw he had all the same stuff on his page about his department that we all have on ours.”
Through Baffes, Romero explained he was looking for a hotel or a place to camp out. He’d arrived at O’Hare airport the day before and slept there before riding to Joliet.
Romero took a map from his saddlebag that showed Joliet as the first stop he planned to make from Chicago to Los Angeles along Route 66. An extreme adventurist, the European was going to spend his vacation seeing America by bicycling 10 hours a day on “The Mother Road.”
Battalion Chief Terry Mangun decided Joliet would promote international relations by offering Romero dinner. After giving him a tour of the firehouse and showing off the equipment, the crew offered the bombero an extra bunk for the night. “He was ecstatic that we would do that,” Fleck said. “We talked, took pictures and we gave him a ‘Support the Troops’ shirt from the firefighters union.” The “Different country, different language, but he’s a part of our brotherhood and we thought it would be cool to pay it forward and see that he gets taken care of all the way to L.A.,” Fleck said. At 8 p.m. on Memorial Day, they called the Bloomington fire department and asked if they’d let Romero spend the next night. “Right away, their guys said ‘Send him by,’ ” Fleck said. The Joliet firefighters kept track as their Bloomington brothers called Springfield the following day. Springfield called St. Louis the day after that. At each stop, Romero was invited to stay at the local department for a meal and a bunk. Still wanting to look after Romero, the local crew kept in touch and Nick Carbaugh made a call to Springfield, Mo. He ended up speaking to a captain who’s on the firefighter union’s state board. “He told Nick (that) Jose would have a place to stop every day he was in Missouri and called his equivalent in Oklahoma, who said they’d do the same and pass him along,” Fleck said. Earlier this week, Romero reached Albquerque, N.M., and is expected to stay with firefighters in Arizona and California before he flies back on July 3. “We’re still hoping to find him a place to stay in Los Angeles, too,” Fleck said. “To bring all these departments together to take care of ‘our
