Fireman Rob Shows That No One is Struggling Alone

On September 10, 2001, Robert Verhelst was fighting a fire for the City of Madison Fire Department, which lasted through the night into the morning. Another blaze far from Wisconsin was about to change his life.

At the firehouse, he took a shower and heard that one of the towers at the World Trade Center in New York City was on fire. Downstairs in the firehouse, the TV was on. He watched a large jet plane careen into the second tower. He grabbed his gear, jumped into his purple Kia, and sped off to Manhattan, 935 miles away, driving straight though for 17 hours.

“My memory to this day blocks out a lot of things, but I don’t remember a moment where I wanted to stop,” Verhelst said.

The rescue efforts the young firefighter hoped to join were now a massive recovery operation.

“There was a lot of hope we’d rescue someone. But it was lost hope,” he said. “That was the scariest and saddest thing.”

Only 20 people were rescued from the debris.

The devastation across 14 acres of toxic rubble resembling nuclear winter in balmy New York was hard to process. He slept in the crevices of gnarly downed beams atop the smoking pile.

“There were so many people doing the same thing – fire fighters and steel workers, medics and the Red Cross, all doing things outside the norm,” Verhelst said.

A few days in, he took a bathroom break in a porta potty. He thought he had done his business but returning to the pile noticed his jumpsuit was now soaked with urine. This was a battle scene new to American soil, and he was floundering in the fog of war, 23 years old and not ready for any of this.

For several years, when finally falling asleep, Verhelst didn’t look forward to waking up. The haunting images consuming his mind were too awful, too powerful. Days were meaningless. He was lost.

Verhelst, who had played basketball and competed in water polo at Edgewood College, learned he could deal with the trauma by putting his body and spirit to an ultimate test by competing in triathlons – in helmet, bunker pants, jacket, and air pack for the 26.2-mile run portion of the race. He does it to honor those who responded to the attacks and lost their lives while raising awareness of mental illness – not just for first responders but everyone suffering in their own way.

After finishing the ironman Wisconsin 2011, on the 10th anniversary of 9/11, he realized the full impact and power of the image of a geared-up firefighter pushing through to the finish line.

He wasn’t flying light through the course like a gazelle. If the power of purpose looked like a struggle, all the better.

He became known as “Fireman Rob” and now holds the Guinness World Record for the most Ironman 70.3 Triathlons in one year (23) and longest distance run in firefighter gear (40 miles in 24 hours).

“The pain and struggle and challenge of every race lets me know I am still alive,” Fireman Rob said. “It proves to me I still have a passion in my heart to move forward.”

Finding out that during PBR World Finals Ariat, the sport’s official boot, was organizing in a 5K charitable run, Fireman Rob booked a flight to Texas to participate.

Running through the historic Fort Worth Stock Yards in nearly 60 pounds of equipment, he joked that “the cow manure makes you want to move faster.”

He has finished races in a scorching 110-degree heat index and carried the American flag for a Gold Star family whose father took his life during an overseas tour. He has competed with Bonner Paddock, the only person with cerebral palsy to finish ironman Kona and summit Kilimanjaro.

In Lake Tahoe in 2013, the swim took place in 35 degrees, and the bike course felt like the Tour de France. He collapsed at the finish line with 5 seconds to go before the 17-hour cut off.

Following a half-knee replacement, he keeps at it, even with chronic bronchitis and the top of his esophagus eaten away from the toxic air steaming off the pile.

The firefighting gear isn’t the only weight on his back. Mental anguish still rears its ugly head. He will continue competing in gear as long as his body will allow. Because the fight will always be there.

“You don’t get a day off from this illness; you can’t wish it away,” he said. “Everyone feels like they’re the only one struggling.I want to make people feel like they’re not alone.”

At the races, a picture is worth a thousand metaphoric words pertaining to life. If this man in a heavy suffocating suit alongside those in shorts and t-shirts can move forward, so can anyone.

Rob has become a successful motivational speaker as well, appearing at meetings ranging from Southwest Airlines and 3M to a national cheerleaders convention. With his mother, a teacher like his dad who passed in 2019, he wrote the book Forged in the Fires.

Fireman Rob is now 46, with a son and two stepdaughters. More than 24 years ago, he signed on with the fire department to join something bigger than himself. He’s now part of something even bigger – showing, one resilient step at a time, that those who feel lost are not alone.