Frank Nunez spent thousands of hours in the back of the Itasca Fire Department ambulance providing care and saving lives.
On Tuesday night, once again he was back in the patient compartment of an ambulance. Only this time, he was on the cot not in the captain's chair.
Itasca Fire Chief Jack Schneidwind and fellow firefighters have been at Northwestern Memorial Hospital for weeks as Nunez battled his demon.
"We have volunteers that are coming in off duty to make sure that Frank is comfortable and has the honor of being in the back of the ambulance for the last time," Chief Schneidwind told CBS2.
"He came in with a great attitude, wanting to make a difference to the people that we served," Schneidwind recalled the day Nunez joined in 2018.
A year later, Nunez started having a sharp pain in his left leg. He was diagnosed with a rare form of soft tissue cancer.
Nunez beat the cancer and it went into remission. But it returned in 2021 in his left long – and this time it was terminal.
Yet, Nunez kept working. "He has not missed a day - and could have missed many, many days - but he came to work every single day."
Nunez worked until he couldn't anymore.
Before leaving the hospital for hospice, he married his girlfriend, Christina, at Northwestern. They met weeks before Nunez's diagnosis. He wrote on their wedding day: "I knew I would marry her. She was the 'one.'"
But a lifetime is not something they have – which is why this moment Tuesday was key.
"Every so often, we get these phenomenal people like Frank, who you just know would walk in a room, and light up the room, and make everyone feel safe," said Dr. Khalilah Gates of Northwestern Memorial Hospital.
Fellow firefighters from his and other departments saluted as Nunez was wheeled out of the hospital and placed in his ambulance.
