Fireman Subandi dies hero's death in Blok M blaze

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Subandi drove his 16-year old daughter to school on Monday morning. He gave her some money. "Here, this is for two days," he said. She never thought that they would be the last words he ever spoke to her.

Several hours later, Subandi, the head of a fire department post in Tebet, South Jakarta, rushed to Blok M area as a market building was reportedly on fire. He fought alongside almost 200 firefighters to put out the fire.

At school, Cindy, his daughter, was just having an ordinary day.

A few minutes after 12 noon, at the burned market, an hour's drive from Cindy's school, the firefighters thought that they had the situation under control.

Five tired-looking firemen, including Subandi, were eating lunch amid the ruins. Suddenly, a loud cracking sound of a blaze from the next level up interrupted their meal.

"Let's go, take the hose," shouted Subandi, who was in charge at that time. The 45-year old man led his men quickly upstairs leaving their half-finished meal behind.

The blaze greeted them as they arrived and it had gotten too big to control. An escalator connected to the upper floor suddenly collapsed. "Face down! Hurry out!" shouted Subandi to his men. A loud crumbling sound swallowed his voice, but the four other men managed to crawl away.

"Help! Help!"

Rolly, one of his men, turned his head to find his commander. Subandi could not be seen as dust from the debris and the flames blocked their sight.

Those two words were Subandi's last ones.

"In his 25 years of service, he had never come home with a bruise on his well-built body," said Urip Dwiyanti, the wife of Jakarta's youngest fire department area head. She held back her tears and forced a smile, while her daughter buried her face in her lap.

"He knew the consequences of the job. We all did. We just never expected it to happen, no one does," said the mother of two teenagers, Cindy, 16, and Randy, 14.

Subandi, the oldest of seven, followed in his father's footsteps to work for the fire department. The humorous man was popular among his colleagues, neighbors and even among women friends.

"He chose to be a fireman instead of accepting an offer to enter the police academy," said Mustaqimah, his mother. Having a husband and two sons, Subandi and his younger brother, working as firefighters, she said that niggling worries were so much a part of her everyday life that she ignored them.

"I am so used to him being away for 24 hours. But it had always been with the thought that he would return the next day," Urip said, explaining that she might have to open a food stall to support her children later on.

The couple was supposed to celebrate their 19th wedding anniversary on Saturday (Sept. 3), and Subandi promised his daughter a new cell phone for her 17th birthday on Sep. 19.

"I do not want any gifts. If I could still say something to him, I would ask for his prayers and blessings. I want to be a teacher," Cindy said.

Cindy looked up at a picture of her late father hanging on the wall with hope.