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  • 2003-10-18 (xsd:date)
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  • Was a Child Named After Robert Matthews, 9/11 Rescuer? (en)
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  • On 11 September 2001, terrorist acts in America resulted in the deaths of thousands of innocents. Many tales, from the horrifying to the inspiring, have emerged from the events of that day: accounts of tragedies averted through fortuitous coincidences, accounts of incredible acts of bravery and heroism, accounts of lives shattered and faith reaffirmed. One story contained all of these elements, but like so many other September 11-related tales, it appears to have been a work of inspirational fiction rather than a real-life account: The account reproduced above hit the Internet around the second anniversary of the 9/11 attacks in 2003, related as first-person tale told by one of the principals (a man named Robert Matthews) as a call-in guest to a Norfolk, Virginia, radio station on 11 September 2003. It described the caller's encounter with a couple who had appeared at his home two months earlier to inform him that they had named their child after his father, a retired NYFD fireman who had died saving the woman (while she was pregnant) and others from one of the World Trade Center towers in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. And, the couple also announced, they had led his father to Christ just before his death. As a supposedly true account, this tale invites a good deal of skepticism for working so many common inspirational tale motifs into one story, including: We don't know whether or not someone really did call a Norfolk radio station on 11 September 2003 and relate this story, but the details don't check out: several comprehensive databases of September 11 victims which include emergency services personnel (e.g., the 9/11 Memorial), list no one among the World Trade Center dead named Jake Matthews (the name of the heroic rescuer mentioned in the account); they don't even list anyone with a surname of Matthews at all, nor anyone with a given name of Jake or Jacob (save for one 24-year-old New Yorker who was clearly far too young to be a grandfather and a retired FDNY fireman). Nor do searches of news databases and other information sources locate any story resembling the one described here (under any name), save for this solitary account of it. Unless the details have been substantially garbled or otherwise deliberately changed in the telling, the story doesn't match any known real-life event. On the available evidence we have to conclude that this tale, touching as many may find it, is purely the product of someone's imagination and not a true account. (en)
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