Caribou Honors Fallen 9/11 Heroes with Town’s First Memorial Stair Climb

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PRESQUE ISLE, Maine (WAGM) - First responders, students and community members honored firefighters who lost their lives in the 9/11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center. The Caribou Tech Center’s Protective Services programs hosted the first 9/11 stair climb on Northern Maine on Wednesday night. The 110 flight-climb was meant to simulate the distance those fallen men and women had to travel inside the World Trade Center. Some signed up as relay teams, others were determined to do it alone, but everyone was prepared to give it their all. Some local organizations wore first responders gear in memory of the fallen heroes.

Brayden Boulier from the Easton Fire Department was one of those participants and said he had, “Pretty much all the gear, even a little less than what all the first responders and firefighters had going up the tower. It’d be a lot easier you know just doing shorts and the pack, but you know the gear creates sweat and then friction. Yeah, it’s a process. This is my first time doing the stair climb. It’s 110 flights. This staircase is equal to two so going up it once counts as two flights of stairs. So, technically 55 times. On 9/11 the highest they got was 78 flights in the South tower but we’re doing the whole thing to memorize all the lost and fallen fighter fighters and police officers. EMS. Even all the civilians. It’s a tragic event and so we’re trying to represent them.”

Blayne Hartley, a student at Caribou Community School Student the participated said, “I’m participating because I wanna feel what it feels like for those firefighters falling down in the fire and everything. I wanna be a firefighter actually when I grow up or a cop.”

Joseph Dionne, another Caribou Community School participant said, “They just wanted to show what it would feel like.” This was just one of the many ways that people honored the victims of the terrorist attacks on September 11th, 2001.