Sunland Park Fire captain climbs stairs to honor 9/11 first-responders

SUNLAND PARK, New Mexico -- Sunland Park Fire Department Capt. Dennis Schoen Jr. comes up on his 5 year journey to commemorate the New York firefighters that lost their lives on Sept. 11 by climbing stairs and telling each of their stories.

“I wanted to do something different to continue their legacy, to be able to have the next generation of firefighters, the next generation of young adults to know who our brothers were,” said Schoen.

He climbs the height of the towers at least once a shift, all 110 floors, without fail. After research on each responder, Schoen gets on Facebook Live and shares the story with everyone.

“I climb up for 32 minutes, roughly, and I give the entire story as much as I can by memory,” he said.

One of those viewers was Jessica DeRubbio, daughter of 9/11 responder David DeRubbio, who reached out and thanked him for keeping the legacy of her father alive.

“My daughter is going to be 12. She never knew my dad and so for me to show her something like this and say hey here this guy who never met him and never met these people personally but he is making sure that we know them,” she said.

“It’s amazing I mean to hear this man that's never met my dad talk about him like it was his buddy it made me feel like for a few minutes.. that my dad was still here,” DeRubbio added.

Sunland Park Fire Department Chief Daniel Medrano, is also very proud of his captain.

“He’s setting an example for all firefighters, this is not an easy task by any means,” said Medrano.

Exactly 342 climbs later, Schoen finished his second to last climb as he heads to New York City for the final one.

Although the journey is still not over, “I'm going to climb until I can't anymore,” said Schoen.

Next he will be going down the list and climbing for those responders that died of illness from working “the pile” at ground zero for almost nine months until the operation was declared complete.