Nearly 3,000 people lost their lives in the 9/11 attacks. It is the single deadliest incident for firefighters and law enforcement in our nation’s history.
For the last several years, the Greensboro Fire Department has honored those first responders with a 9/11 Memorial Stair Climb at the Bellemeade parking deck downtown.
The event normally attracts hundreds but was canceled due to COVID-19.
It didn’t stop a small group of firefighters from showing up Friday afternoon.
Nine firefighters climbed eight flights of stairs, nine times over. In total, they climbed 72 flights. The equivalent of the highest floors reached by firefighters in the World Trade Center.
“You know, you might hit a point where you want to quit, or you want to stop, and it starts to hurt and it starts to get hot, but then you tell yourself, I’m doing this for them because they would have done this for me,” said TJ Blaylock, a Greensboro firefighter.