TAMPA, Fla. — Hundreds of people climbed 42 flights of stairs at the Bank of America building in downtown Tampa on Saturday morning to raise money and awareness for lung disease.
The American Lung Association's Fight for Air Climb brought dozens of firefighters to climb to the top on their day off. Battalion Chief Rhiannon Rutzen and Captain David Garofalo of Pasco County Fire Rescue climbed the stairs in their full gear.
"We've also been affected personally, different people in our family, but also different people in our profession with cancer," Rutzen said.
The goal of the event is to raise money and awareness step by step.
"To be here with the brother and sisterhood to get up that building is amazing, and it makes us think that how many people are dying of lung cancer and need these funds to help them and help them find, cures for them," Garofalo said.
For the firefighters, the cause hits close to home.
"Like Chief said, we have people in our own department that have suffered. We lost Jason Tucker to cancer years ago, and it just kind of streamlined our program to get decon, get healthy, and we have the best program in the state in Pasco County Fire Rescue. We don't have dirty gear anymore. We don't have anything like that. Because we are making ourselves better," Garofalo said.
Lung disease is not limited to just first responders. Hailey Carmichael works with 4DMedical, a sponsor of the event and a group focused on finding solutions to lung disease.
"It absolutely spans across so many different people. People are involved because they have family members who have been affected by lung health. People are service members, and so they know firsthand what it's like to have to handle people with lung health," Carmichael said.
Wearing their gear makes the climb a lot harder for the firefighters, but Chief Rutzen says it is just about showing up for a good cause, appreciating what we have, and fighting for more.
"A lot of times, people are looking at us and are really proud of us for what we're doing, wearing the gear and stuff like that, but we feel the same way looking at them. Anybody that has the blessing of their health to be able to do something like this, we should all be grateful for that," Rutzen said.
This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.
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