JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — A firefighter with the Jacksonville Fire and Rescue Department will be making quite a climb this weekend.
Jacksonville-native Nick Billups will be climbing 110 floors in full firefighter gear on Sept. 11 in honor of the men and women who died as a result of the terrorist attacks 21 years ago.
Billups is a former YMCA personal trainer and martial arts instructor. However, despite his background in fitness, he says he's been training for the climb for weeks.
"I want to make sure I do my very best and not stop," he says. "I may slow down a little bit, but my goal is not to stop."
He will be carrying around 80 pounds of added weight during his climb to the top.
He says he does this every year to honor the brave first responders who made the climb on 9/11.
"You want to stop, you want to press that stop button to catch your breath, but you gotta understand that during that time, when 9/11 happened, these men and women did not have that option," he says.
Billups has been a JFRD firefighter for three years and says he's always wanted to help people.
"The whole adage is 'when others are walking out, we're walking in' so when I'm on that stair climber I'm gonna do my best to not stop because the brave men and women that gave their lives had no option of stopping," he says.
He is expected to start his climb at roughly 10 a.m. Sunday on a stair climber at the Williams YMCA.