With full fire gear on, and step by step Paducah firefighter Tim Kirkham and his fellow firefighters climbed the stairs at Barkley Dam on Saturday. They climbed them 18 times.
They didn't climb them of training, or exercise, but for something bigger.
"We're finishing what they started," says Kirkham. They climbed the stairs in honor of the more than 300 firefighters who died on 9/11. Walking the steps 18 times equals the 110 flights of steps the New York firefighters climbed at the twin towers. With each step Kirkham took, he thought about those who didn't make it home that day. "I can only imagine the adrenaline that was going on, and that they were climbing those stairs that they probably had a pretty good idea that they weren't coming out of," says Kirkham.
Even though he wasn't there that day, Kirkham says he feels a connection to the first responders that ran towards danger on 9/11.