Canadian firefighter travels to Colorado to honor lives lost on 9/11

MANITOU SPRINGS, Colo. (KKTV) – A firefighter from Canada traveled to a unique location to honor the lives lost on September 11, 2001 this year: Manitou Springs, Colorado.

“Every year we do some tribute to that day, to the firefighters, and its always a weighted vest stair climb situation,” firefighter Paul Hollingshead explained before starting this year’s climb. “We just felt that the Incline would be a great challenge to try this year.”

The Manitou Incline sees its fair share of first responders and guests honor the lives lost on 9/11 by taking on the local challenge.

Hollingshead made the trip from Ontario.

Hollingshead said he was a firefighter in Toronto during the late 90s and early 200s and would often go down to New York City for events with other firefighters. He said those in New York would open their homes to them.

“We would say that we’re from Toronto, and they would be like, ‘no you’re staying at our house, you’re not staying at a hotel, you’re staying with us,’” Hollingshead recalled. “Their generosity and their thoughts on brotherhood and sisterhood was very touching to us. Every time we went down there, they had no problems opening up their doors to us. Knowing that those guys died that day… it’s pretty emotional.”

He also recalled the moments seeing the tragedy unfold on television, his first thoughts going to those firefighters:

“We’re all saying ‘yeah, the guys are going to be in there, they’re going to get this fire under control, they’re going to get people out.’ And then as soon as the one building collapsed, live on TV, my friend said to me ‘do you know how many firefighters just died?’ and I’m like no, no those guys would have made it out… but obviously they chose to stay in there until the very end.”

Hollingshead said his trip up and down the Manitou Incline and the other tributes he’s done are just small ways to honor those firefighters.

“I know I’m going to climb this today and be able to go home, not a problem… It’s just a small kind of sacrifice we do to try to think about how those guys felt that day.”

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