Baker was given a hero’s sendoff at his funeral service at Christian Life Center, as mourners recounted the lifesaving efforts that earned him the Army Commendation Medal for “his courage, compassion and life-saving skills” during the terrorists attacks on 9/11. The citation lauded Baker for “risking personal safety” to rescue others.
The then-27-year-old Air Force captain had only been on the job for a week at the Pentagon Tri-Service Dental Clinic when terrorists flew an American Airlines plane into the building. The dental clinic was on the other side of the Pentagon, and an unharmed Baker swiftly answered the call for medical personnel. He had just completed combat triage training that would prove invaluable as he tried to save the lives of victims being pulled out of the burning building.
Baker told his hometown newspaper, The Bryan, Ohio, Times, “I was actually unaware that the plane had hit the building from where I was at. There was confusion about what was going on.”
Lisa said that Baker teamed up with another first responder who pulled victims out of the building while Baker started IVs. One of the victims was burned over 70 percent of his body, and Baker stayed with him until he was transported to the hospital. The victim was hospitalized for seven months, but survived. “Chris saved many lives that day,” Lisa said.
She did not hear from her husband until late in the afternoon, praying “Please, let it be him,” every time the phone rang.
“I was so blessed to finally get that call,” Lisa said. Chris did not get home until 11 that night.
“You just need to quit,” Lisa urged. “I can’t let you go back there.” Yet she drove him to the Pentagon at 4 the next morning. When Lisa drove him to the site, she recalled, machine guns were pointed at their car and they were ordered to put their hands up.
The couple faced tragedy again the following year when their first child, Preston, was stillborn at 37 weeks. When daughter Caylin was born in 2004, Baker decided to leave the Air Force so the family could move back to Dayton and be closer to family. “He truly loved the Air Force, and didn’t want to leave,” Lisa said, “but he was all about his family.”
He was such a devoted father, recalled his mother-in-law, Diana Morris, that he insisted on teaching her infant CPR before allowing her to babysit his newborn daughter, Caylin.
If Lisa called to make some small complaint about Chris, Morris would always respond, “What have you done to him?”
“He was always so kind and gentle, I knew it had to be my daughter’s fault,” Morris explained with a smile.
The couple met as undergraduates at Wright State University. At the end of their first date, Chris presented Lisa with a candy ring and asked, “Will you marry me?” She was not impressed. It would be another five months before she consented to a second date. This time, something clicked. “He made me laugh,” Lisa recalled. “He was so funny and quirky.”
Baker bought a dental practice in Vandalia and the family flourished with the birth of son, Ethan, now 3. The Baker Dental Group now has two locations with more than 2,000 patients. Yet Baker always took time for family vacations in Florida and Sandusky, invariably with extended family members in tow.
A statement from the staff was read at the funeral service, praising him both as a fun-loving prankster and a dedicated dentist: “Dr. Baker was very considerate in listening to our personal or work-related concerns and appreciative of our feedback. Somehow his listening ears would reach to the front desk and jump into our ‘Keeping Up With the Kardashians’ side conversations.” Several patients eulogized their beloved Dr. Baker as a man who took away their fear of dentistry.
Baker’s sister, Michelle Downing, said she will always remember 9/11 and how her brother was a hero that week. “I was so grateful he survived 9/11,” she said, her voice breaking. “I love you, Chris, and you will always be with me and all of us.”
The most touching tribute came from Baker’s 8-year-old daughter Caylin, which was read by an aunt, recalling the time that her father dressed up as an 1980s rocker for the Father-Daughter dance. “My Dad had dark sunglasses on, a bandanna, and a Guns N’ Roses T-shirt. And he looked hilarious. It’s those funny things and many more that make me miss him. And I love him.”
Yet, Lisa said, he “never wanted to burden anyone with his own problems.”
Baker’s father, William, also a dentist, died of a heart attack at 49, when Baker was an undergraduate at WSU. The loss ended Baker’s dream of going into dental practice with his father and instilled a determination to live a long life. He exercised daily and competed in triathlons. “He wanted to grow to be old and be there for his children,” Lisa said.
This Mother’s Day, Baker suffered a mild heart episode that caused him to be hospitalized. It turned out to be the most common type of irregular heartbeat, known as atrial fibrillation. Baker wrote to a friend, “So much for trying to defeat your genes.” After that, something changed in Baker. He repeatedly sought help, but the anxiety became so severe that he took a month’s leave from his dental practice. The man who had saved so many lives ultimately was unable to save his own. On Sept. 7, Lisa came home to find he had taken his own life.
Family and friends said the tragedy of Baker’s death is a complete aberration from the way he lived his life. “That wasn’t my Christopher,” she said.
She points to a table covered with medals and family photos and the American flag that had been draped over his casket.
Lisa will make sure that her children know that their father was a hero.
“He saved lives,” Lisa said. “He was honorable, and he was a one-in-a-million dad.”
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