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Rodríguez, a Puerto Rican who spent 20 years working at the World Trade Center, was inside the North Tower when American Airlines Flight 11 struck the building. Because he knew the tower intimately and had access to a master key, he stayed behind to open doors, help people escape and assist firefighters as they moved through the building.
In the years that followed, Rodríguez became an outspoken advocate for 9/11 survivors and victims, including undocumented workers who struggled to receive assistance. But despite the recognition he has received for his actions, he rejects the label of hero.
“I’m not a hero. I’m simply a survivor,” Rodríguez said in an interview with Latino News Network. “To me, the heroes died on September 11 while helping other people get out.”
As the country prepares to mark 25 years since the attacks, Rodríguez spoke with LNN about the people he could not save, survivor’s guilt, his Puerto Rican roots, his advocacy after 9/11 and what happens to survivors when the anniversary ceremonies end and the cameras turn off.
LNN: How are you doing personally as the 25th anniversary approaches?
Rodríguez: I’m flooded with requests from media outlets around the world, in every language you can imagine, mainly because I spoke about what happened from the beginning. I never stopped.
Unfortunately, many of the victims, survivors and people affected by the event no longer want to talk 25 years later. People close themselves off.
Despite the exhaustion, I’m in a period of remembrance, depression and reflection on what these 25 years have meant to me. It has been a process that has never ended.
You learn to live with the tragedy and the loss. You have to learn how to process it emotionally so you can keep moving forward.
But I relive September 11 every day. There isn’t a day when I don’t remember it. To me, it feels like it happened yesterday.
LNN: When you think about that morning today, what is the first thing that comes to mind?
Rodríguez: That it was a beautiful day. It was a perfect day. There were no clouds. There were elections in New York City, and it was a perfect day not to go to work.
In fact, I didn’t want to go. I called my supervisor to take a sick day, and he told me I had to come in because nobody else could do my job. I cleaned 110 floors of stairwells.
That’s the first thing I remember. It was a perfect, beautiful day that became the worst day of my life. It turned me into a living witness, and an uncomfortable witness, to what happened.
LNN: You knew the North Tower better than most and stayed to help, using your master key to open doors. Did you think you might die?
Rodríguez: You’re in a state of desperation. I was desperate to get as many people out as possible because I was trying to reach my friends who worked at Windows on the World, the restaurant on the 106th floor.
You’re in a state of dissociation. You’re not thinking about yourself. You’re thinking about the people who need you, the people who are trapped. I had the master key, and with that key I could help them.
The thought that I could die crossed my mind, but I was focused on reaching my friends.
LNN: You have often been called a hero. Do you see yourself that way?
Rodríguez: No. People call me a hero. I’ve been called a national hero and received more honors and recognition than you can imagine. But I’m not a hero. I’m simply a survivor.
To me, the heroes died on September 11 while helping other people get out.
I’m simply a survivor who had the tool that was needed at a unique moment to help people escape.
It’s difficult when people are constantly telling you that you’re a hero. I have survivor’s guilt. Why did I survive and my friends didn’t? Why am I here and my friends aren’t?
LNN: How have you learned to live with that survivor’s guilt?
Rodríguez: By doing what I do. By giving myself to the community. It’s the only way I’ve found to live with it.
For me, it wasn’t only what I experienced on September 11. Afterward, I organized victims and fought to get them assistance. I fought for undocumented people who weren’t receiving help and for the creation of the federal compensation fund. Then I became involved in the fight to establish the 9/11 Commission.
There were so many things happening at once that I never had an emotional break to process everything.
Today, my work is a mission. My mission is to honor the lives of the people who died.
LNN: Why was advocating for undocumented victims important to you?
Rodríguez: There were people who weren’t receiving help. After September 11, I became involved in organizing victims and fighting to make sure they received assistance. That included undocumented people.
My work became about the community and about making sure the people affected by what happened weren’t forgotten.
LNN: There is now an entire generation that wasn’t alive on September 11, 2001. What do you think they don’t understand?
Rodríguez: There are around 100 million young people who know very little or are disconnected from what happened on September 11.
They see the images of the towers falling, the smoke covering Lower Manhattan and this enormous tragedy. But they forget that those towers were filled with people.
There’s no emotional connection to the loss.
I try to rehumanize the story. The most important thing wasn’t the towers. It was the people we lost. My job is to rehumanize the story so people don’t forget.
LNN: Is there someone you helped that day who remains particularly present in your memory?
Rodríguez: Felipe David. He was in the basement and had burns over 33 percent of his body. Nobody wanted to touch him or help him.
I bandaged him, put him on my back and led the first 14 people I saved out of the basement while carrying him.
The hospital contacted Telemundo, and they organized our reunion.
It was very emotional. It’s one of the things I value most because he survived.
LNN: What will you be doing on September 11 this year?
Rodríguez: I’ll be working as an on camera expert live for Despierta América. Then I’ll be with Spanish Television TVE, and at night with Chris Cuomo. They’re going to keep me busy all day.
I won’t be inside the ceremony because I’ve done that for many years. It’s very emotional.
LNN: What happens when the cameras turn off?
Rodríguez: That’s a question nobody asks. Nobody asks what happens when the cameras turn off.
When the cameras turn off, we sink into the pain, the anguish and the depression of everything the anniversary represents. It takes us weeks to recover.
I know it will happen because it happens to me every year.
When the ceremony ends, the attention is gone. There’s no longer the repeated story about how I saved so many people. Then you have to deal with the pain of the families I represent and the pain of the people who never came home.
I’ll also have to deal with my own grief, anguish and sadness over losing 200 friends.
LNN: Twenty five years later, do you believe there are still unanswered questions about 9/11?
Rodríguez: Yes. Twenty five years later, we are still looking for answers. There are many questions that haven’t been answered.
I testified before the 9/11 Commission. My testimony was behind closed doors, and when the final report was published, my name wasn’t in it.
I’ve always described what I experienced and the explosions I heard as I went up through the building. That doesn’t necessarily mean there were explosives. They could have been tanks or other things exploding because of the pressure of what was happening. The problem, in my view, is that it wasn’t investigated enough, and that creates questions.
There are conspiracy theories that are offensive and absurd. Some people say there were no planes or that the images were computer generated. That’s ridiculous. There were planes. I was there.
I’m an uncomfortable witness because I lived it. I was there, and I fought for an investigation. When the report was published, many of the questions we had were still unanswered.
Alex Segura is Managing Editor for the West at Latino News Network and a journalist based in California. He has covered U.S. politics, immigration and major national stories for media outlets in the United States and Europe, including from the White House.
