Dan Roddick and Jessy Horsfield are in high spirits after having climbed to the top of the 10th tallest building in the country for a cause.
On Sunday, May 7, the two Sicamous firefighters were in Calgary, where they completed this year’s annual Firefighter Stairclimb Challenge. As team “Time to Bail,” the two trecked up the 1,204 stairs (approximately 774 feet) of the Bow Building, while dressed in full firefighting gear, in 28 minutes.
“We knew it was going to be difficult,” said Roddick. “We went in with a goal, obviously of completing it – we wanted to do it in under half an hour so we did that, we accomplished our goal.”
The event raised $339,000 for Wellspring Calgary, a place that provides free programs and resources to people who have been impacted by cancer and those who care for them.
“The time and effort that each person and team put in was well worth the cause,” said Horsfield, who added the experience was everything she expected and more.
“On various floors they had volunteers encouraging you to keep going and pushing through, but also remind you how many floors you have left. That wasn’t part of my plan,” laughed Horsfield. “I didn’t want to know how many floors we had left.”
While body temperatures rose during the climb, Roddick and Horsfield remained cool-headed and focused on reaching the top together.
“We were pushing each other farther… one more set, we’ll take a break here, we’ll grab some water, catch our breath,” said Horsfield. “We did it as a team. We weren’t focusing on our time, we just wanted to complete it. We started as a team, we were going to end it as a team. It was great that way, and the morale, even with other firefighters that we passed on the stairs, everyone was encouraging each other to keep going… so that was all really neat.”
Also keeping Roddick going was a photo he kept with him of his grandfather who is now battling cancer.
“I carried a picture of my grandfather on my helmet there for the whole thing… It was really a sense of pride I was able to do something like that for him,” said Roddick.
Both Roddick and Horsfield were thrilled to have taken part in the event and look forward to doing it again. Horsfield adds she’d like to bring other Sicamous firefighters along for next year’s climb.
“I would love to bring a couple more people if our fire chief allows it, because you’ve got to have coverage there in Sicamous,” she said.