Nampa firefighter climbs 76 stories for blood cancer research [Video]

SEATTLE — The Columbia Center in downtown Seattle stands at a staggering 76 stories, hardly a tower that one would willingly climb up, but almost every year, Dave O’Connor does it.

“You start looking up and it’s like, oh you’re kidding me. What did I get myself into?” said O’Connor, a firefighter with the Nampa Fire District in Idaho.  

What O’Connor chooses to get into every year, is climbing the tower via its stairwell to help raise funds for blood cancer research.

“And you’re not going to turn around, because you have the support of everyone else going,” O’Connor said.

O’Connor has climbed the tower 17 times and counting.

The Firefighter Stairclimb, hosted by the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS), has raised over $28 million since its inception in 1991.

“I think I’m in okay shape, it might not seem like it right now, but the 20 minutes that I go through climbing stairs is nothing compared to treatments and things that other …