Some 1,500 people climbed a total of 5 million stairs at Red Rocks Amphitheatre on Saturday in a somber ceremony remembering the nearly 3,000 people who died in the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Area firefighters and those who simply wanted to remember climbed the amphitheater’s stairs nine times to commemorate the 110 flights that New York City firefighters climbed to try to save the occupants of the World Trade Center. The event raised more than $50,000 to help the Twin Towers Orphan Fund, the West Metro Fire Foundation and the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation. The Metro West Fire Protection District sponsored the event, which began at 9:03 a.m. to commemorate the moment United Airlines Flight 175 struck the South Tower.
Also on hand was the family of Jason Dahl, the Littleton pilot who was the captain of United Flight 93, the flight bound from New Jersey to San Francisco that crashed near Shanksville, Pa. Terrorists had intended for that plane to hit the White House.
Some of the firefighters did the stair-climb in full bunker gear, while others carried axes, hoses and equipment.
Jacob Ware, a firefighter from the Elk Creek district, climbed the stairs with 50 pounds of gear. Last year, the climb took him a little less than an hour.
The event is symbolically important, said Don Lombardi, deputy chief for West Metro Fire Rescue.
“The New York firefighters went into the smoke, the heat, and they knew they were going to their deaths,” Lombardi said.
Jesse Winefeldt, who has been a firefighter with Elk Creek for a year, carried his son, Jake, 2, on the stair-climb. On Sept. 11, 2001, Winefeldt was in college, and he recalled a sense of disbelief as he watched the televised images.
“I saw it on TV and thought, ‘That’s not real,’ ” Winefeldt said.
A direct connection to 9/11
As participants checked in and received their blue T-shirts, they could choose to carry with them the name of one of the 343 fallen rescue workers.
Volunteer Armando Encinias of Lakewood, who worked at the registration table, said he was surprised when someone asked him for a specific name of someone who died that day.
“You meet people who say they knew somebody,” said Encinias, who is training to be a firefighter. “But to actually have someone standing right there was an eye-opener.”
Mary Kay of Pine walked the steps along with her dog, Mocha, and carried a Sept. 12, 2001, copy of the New York Times with its stunning images. Kay walked for her daughter, Kay Strozewski, who was in the South Tower and who survived, scrambling down 69 floors in high heels and dodging debris. Strozewski made it out of the building 15 minutes before it collapsed.
“She made the right decisions,” said Kay. “If she had done something different, she wouldn’t be here today.”
Nourishment for the climbers
On that fateful day in 2001, Keith Arnold of Littleton stood on top of a building in New Jersey and watched the horror at the World Trade Center unfold. For Arnold, the main emotion he felt that day was confusion, and he remembered the overpowering smell of acrid smoke as the towers thundered to the ground.
Arnold said he saw the second plane hit the North Tower and never considered the towers could fall.
Later that day, he watched people gathered at a ferry terminal who appeared to be waiting for family or friends. Arnold said he didn’t see a single reunion.
Arnold had friends and acquaintances who died that day, and he still hasn’t returned to visit Ground Zero.
“I never drove back to work that way again,” Arnold said.
Last year, Arnold participated in the first Red Rocks stair-climb and wanted to do something this year for the climbers. The owner of the Garlic Knot restaurants, he and his staff decided to add a twist to the event by providing 4,000 slices of pizza and garlic knots to the stair-climbers.
“It’s going to be a good day,” he said, “but it’s important to remember the sacrifices made by those firefighters who were trying to save people.”
This story ran in the September 15, 2010 edition of the High Timber Times, the Canyon Courier and the Columbine Courier. Photographer: Matthew Jonas, photo editor for Evergreen Newspapers
No comments:
Post a Comment