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Crime & Safety

9/11 Inspires Area Man to Become Firefighter

Mike Baumgart of Cary now serves the Algonquin-Lake in the Hills Fire Protection District as a part-time firefighter/paramedic.

Mike Baumgart of Cary remembered he was getting ready to go to class, and it was "a gorgeous, sunny morning."

Baumgart’s father called him over to the television set on Sept. 11, 2001. The first plane had just crashed into World Trade Center.

“My dad works for Northwest Airlines and he said that planes shouldn’t be flying that low,” Baumgart recalled.

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Baumgart was studying criminal justice at . His mom’s side of the family consisted of many Irish cops—he was going that route.

When he got to that morning, all classes were canceled. He joined the students who were huddled around television sets.

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That day he was greatly influenced by the firefighters. He decided to change his major and become a firefighter/paramedic.

He said he begged to get his first part-time firefighter job at the village of Lakewood four years ago, and he almost passed out from heat exhaustion inside his first burning building because he didn’t want to take a rest. He wanted to keep working. It was, after all, his first burning building.

Baumgarten, 28, is now working part-time at the and also part-time at a department in the St. Charles area.

He still is looking for a full-time gig. But he’s also still happy with the choice he made to change career paths back in college. 

On his computer, the screensaver is a 9/11 photograph of the chaos that day in Manhattan as New York firefighters calmly walk toward the burning towers.

“I joined a brotherhood,” he said.

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