TULSA, Okla. — Tulsa Tech’s Criminal Justice program honored first responders who lost their lives on 9/11 by climbing stairs.
Seventy high school students will go up 110 stairs one step at a time. That number of flights is the same at the World Trade Center.
The students finish the climb for the 72 officers who were killed on 9/11, trying to save others.
This is the second annual event the program has participated in.
WATCH our coverage from last year:
As students climb, they will wear a badge of one of the fallen officers around their necks.
Most of the students, like Amy Millan, were not born when 9/11 happened.
Millan said climbing so many flights can be difficult, but it will be worth it in the end.
"We're here to send the fallen officers home and finish the climb that they couldn't finish,” Millan said.
She chose to honor Officer Smith, one of the only female NYPD officers who died in the towers. She explained to us what Officer Smith did the moment the plane hit the tower.
"She saw the plane hit the tower, she called it in and she had a choice to go back to the station but she chose to go back out there and help as many people as she could,” Millan said.
It wasn’t only Amy and her classmates climbing Denise Henry, the instructor also participated and gave her class praise for their dedication to climbing so many flights.
"We are to do it because we are coming home at the end of the day, and those officers did not get to and still do the job,” Henry said.
The 9/11 stair climb is done as a memorial across the country for the 400 first responders, who died during the attack.
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