Soon, it will be etched into the Wall of Honor for fallen firefighters, in Colorado Springs, for eternity.
Mitchell, 37, died Friday during a live-fire training exercise at Port Everglades before realizing his dream of becoming a firefighter.
"He waited so long," Albert Bordas, a longtime friend, said Saturday afternoon. "I think a lot of people would have given up, but he was determined.
"Finally, when he got the call, he was very, very excited," Bordas said. "It was what he'd worked for for so long."
Bordas wanted to throw a party for his friend when the county fire department hired him at the end of June, but Mitchell insisted on completing his months of training first.
"I've never seen Wayne so dedicated to anything," Bordas said. "This guy would wake up at the crack of dawn, work out, study."
He spent time at home tying a dozen different types of knots with gloves on -- a skill all the trainees would be tested on.
Mitchell was doing so well he had recently been named a group leader in his recruit class, his family said.
"He said he's good, that's why," one of his sisters, Chrissy Enriquez, said with a slight smile.
Mitchell, who graduated from Hialeah High School and was married to Nancy Mitchell, a school counselor, spent 11 years as a lifeguard, most recently at Haulover beach.
Last year, Mitchell saved a little girl from drowning when his sister was at the beach visiting him.
"She got pulled under ... and he just took off running," Enriquez said. "He didn't even have his buoy. I never even saw it. His focus was always where it had to be."
Mitchell told people that the fire-rescue training was intense, but they thought he'd make it through because he was in the best shape of his life.
"Every morning when he wasn't at the beach, he would call me at 5:30 and he'd be on his way to the gym," his mother, Jeanne Wilcox, said. "He'd spend an hour or an hour and a half there.
"He golfed, he played tennis, he surfed. He could do any of those things," she said.
Now Mitchell's family is starting to ask questions.
"I want to know what went wrong," Enriquez said. "Why was it so long before they knew he was gone?"
Mitchell went into a makeshift cargo ship at Port Everglades with four other recruits and three supervisors on Friday morning. They were dressed in full bunker gear. The purpose of the drill was to see a fire up close.
They experienced the brutal heat, the smoke and the darkness firsthand. They saw how quickly the fire spread and what happened when they sprayed water on the flames.
But at some point during the 15- to 20-minute drill, Mitchell collapsed. It is unclear when because no one knew he was in trouble until his four classmates emerged without him.
Supervisors rushed back into the building, found the hose line, and followed it in opposite directions in search of Mitchell. They went around once without finding him. They found him on a second pass, leading them to think that Mitchell got lost but made his way back to the hose before collapsing, said a public safety official on the scene Friday.
Mitchell was still wearing his mask, but he was in cardiac arrest, the official said. Broward County Fire-Rescue medics from the Port Everglades station -- which is a few hundred feet from the Resolve Fire and Hazard Response training center -- rushed Mitchell to Broward General Medical Center, where he died.
Joshua Perper, the Broward medical examiner, said Saturday night that the cause of Mitchell's death had not been determined.
Two fire officials from Broward County who did not want to be identified said Mitchell suffered severe burns to his hands and knees during the drill. Antonio Mesa, another trainee, received a serious burn to his right hand, but when he was reached at home Saturday, he said he could not talk.
The four classmates who went in with Mitchell were treated Friday for burns and heat exhaustion, said Broward Sheriff's Office spokeswoman Veda Coleman-Wright.
The fact all of them were burned raises questions about whether Miami-Dade Fire-Rescue supervisors had increased the temperature inside the burn box to a dangerous level.
The Sheriff's Office, the State Fire Marshal's Office, the Hollywood Fire-Rescue Department and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health are conducting investigations into Mitchell's death.
They will look into several issues, including whether it was too hot outside to be conducting such a grueling exercise; whether Mitchell was wearing a safety device that should have set off a piercing alarm when he failed to move for more than 30 seconds; and whether the trainees were working in pairs, as they should have been.
Two months ago, NIOSH released a report on the death of two firefighters killed while training in Kissimmee in July 2002 and recommended that departments use a thermal imaging camera during live-fire training. The cameras would help trainees see during the drill and help rescuers find a victim if there's a problem.
Miami Dade Fire-Rescue officials have not yet addressed any of these issues.
"Those are all important questions, if they apply," said Al Cruz, vice president of the department's union, who wanted to take a wait-and-see approach.
Staff Writer Rafael A. Olmeda and Staff Researcher William Lucey contributed to this report.
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