Photos: Terminally ill firefighter escorted home by colleagues

SAN ANTONIO, Texas — Emergency response agencies from Houston to San Antonio united to bring a terminally firefighter home to see his family before he died.

Mario Lopez, 28, served as a Bexar county volunteer firefighter when he was diagnosed with leukemia. He told his Bexar County Emergency Services District (ESD) 2 Fire Chief Albert Castillo he was not going to quit, News4SanAntonio reports.

“You know, I’m going to fight this, I’m going to win,” Castillo recalls. “He’s not a quitter and he’s like ‘Chief, I am going to walk through those doors, and I am going to be a firefighter again.’”

After 40 days of treatment at Houston’s MD Anderson, Castillo said Lopez got worse.

“Chief I lied to you,” Castillo remembers him saying. “I said, what do you mean, and he said ‘I’m not going to walk through those doors as a firefighter,’ and I lost it.”

Terminally ill, his brothers and sisters across the state joined forces to transport Lopez by ambulance more than 200 miles [GF1] back to San Antonio from Houston, and saluted him on his journey home.

"I'm not just talking about fire; I'm talking about law enforcement, DPS, Sheriff's Offices along the way you know from Houston to there," Castillo said. “It was amazing, just to see this happening. This brotherhood … everyone came together at this moment."

Lopez made it back home in time to see his family and get married. He died just before 1 a.m. Saturday at North Central Baptist Hospital surrounded by family and friends.

Castillo is coordinating a benefit to help the family with medical bills.