With Tuesday marking the 17th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 tragedy, Blytheville firemen paid tribute to the victims by accepting Anytime Fitness’ 110-floor challenge.
Simulating climbing 110 floors or more at the local gym Tuesday, the local firemen honored the 343 firefighters and other emergency personnel that lost their lives when trying to save those trapped in the World Trade Centers that horrific day in 2001.
Blytheville Fire Department Capt. Tony Emmert participated in the event, along with fellow firefighters Deon Robinson, Kyle Hinson, Dwight Griffin, Gerrett Howard, and Rodney Duncan.
Anytime Fitness called the BFD and gave them the opportunity, according to Emmert.
“It was their idea,” Emmert said, referring to Anytime Fitness. “They just called up to the fire station and challenged us that if we wanted to do the 110 floors like at the World Trade Center were, to see if we wanted to re-enact that to see what the other firemen went through. That’s how it all started.”
Anytime Fitness gym manager Jarrod Sites added, “We were really happy to have them here. We are very proud of our community. We wanted to honor those who had fallen on 9/11 and we wanted to let them know that we had a stair climber so that they could do that here. We know it meant a lot to the community and it meant a lot to us, just being Americans, and being a community focused company that we are.”
Emmert also mentioned that they had the challenge to see who could “climb” the most stairs while doing the challenge, and Griffin climbed the most stairs before stopping.
“We all got on the stair stepper to see how far we could go without stopping,” Emmert said. “Now in real life, you’d go and stop at each floor and take a break and keep going. I think my rookie, Dwight Griffin, which is in the video wearing the full turnout gear went 47 floors before having to stop due to his legs were burning so bad. Everyone else, however, did theirs in their regular clothes but it ranged on how many floors we did. I did 62 floors. Another guy went 70 floors but the one that had the most done at one time was 47 floors and that was done by Dwight.”
Griffin and Howard were the youngest ones of the firefighters and young children when the 9/11 events occurred. Emmert explained that while doing climbs it gives his firefighters the idea of what the firefighters and medical personnel went through on 9/11.
“The guys that wore the air pack and the full turnout gear like Dwight and Gerrett Howard. These guys 17 years ago, I think one of them made the comment that they were like 5 years old when it all happened and the other guy is 28 now so he was like 10 or 11 when it happened,” Emmert explained. “So for them to see what those guys actually went through because we don’t have any big buildings and stuff in Blytheville, obviously. So, for them to get the idea of what they physically had to do. I think it kind of made them realize the sacrifice those guys made maybe even if they didn’t give their lives. Just the amount of work and stuff that they had to do to do their jobs that day.”
Sites stated that the challenge is something they’d like to continue to do on an annual basis at the gym.
Sites added, “It’s definitely something we want to continue to do and make it annual. We decided it would be a good use of our equipment to allow the firefighters to come to honor their fallen brethren. So we did reach out and contact them into our gym and use the stair climbers for sure.”