FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — More than a thousand ROTC cadets, first responders and members of the community came together at Razorback Stadium for the 12th annual 9/11 Memorial Stair Climb.
At the event, which is hosted by the University of Arkansas Army and Air Force ROTC, participants climbed the equivalent of 110 flights of stairs, representing the number of stairs climbed by first responders after the 9/11 attacks.
People of all ages participated in the memorial climb.
Some firefighters wore their gear and other people carried dummies to emulate the weight the first responders on 9/11 would have been carrying while making the climb.
“As you start climbing stairs, you start realizing what our first responders went through in some respects that morning,” said Matt Mills, Assistant Chief of University Police.
“You can never actually duplicate it, especially from a civilian population, maybe, but you can definitely understand the amount of stress on your body, and then you add the weight of the gear that they're carrying. It hopefully brings some reality to the fact that they climbed those stairs not knowing what they would see or what they would find or if they would come back down the stairs, and unfortunately, many never came back down the stairs.”
During opening statements at the event, ROTC leaders said more than 400 first responders lost their lives on Sept. 11, 2001, and thousands more died of health complications from the toxic fumes after that day.
The memorial climb is about honoring each of those lives and their sacrifices.
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