Stair-iffic effort by local firies

WHILE most of us were greeting the day with a coffee and the paper, two Swan Hill men were put to the limits of their endurance as part of a charity event on Sunday.

Tyson Cheek and Jesse Schifferle were among 180 firefighters who raced to the 28th floor of the Crown Metropol Hotel as part of the inaugural Melbourne Firefighter Stair Climb.

Mr Cheek came in 48th place with a time of five minutes and 32 seconds, while Mr Schifferle finished in 111th place in 07:44.

Wearing 25kg of structural equipment and breathing apparatus, the local CFA volunteers were pitted against professional firefighters from across the country and overseas.

Mr Cheek said the pair were chuffed with their efforts, especially considering they did not have access to multiple flights of stairs for their training like some of their city counterparts.

“We did our stair runs at the showgrounds… it didn’t really have the same effect,” he laughed.

“The continuous climbing was a real challenge. The legs certainly felt it.”

Together, Mr Cheek and Mr Schifferle raised almost $2000 for the Alfred Hospital Burns Unit — far surpassing their goal of $343 each and contributing to an overall $120,000.

“We are really excited by that and hope to do even better next year,” Mr Cheek said. 

Steve Axup, one of the event founders, said the stair climb was 15 months in the making and he was thrilled to hand over the $121,000 cheque to the burns unit.

“We had 182 firefighters in the end. They were set off at 30 second intervals which gave everyone a relatively clean shot at the stairwell,” he said.

“476 steps and 28 floors later, they exited the stairwell, crossed the finish line and were literally caught by crews who stripped them of their breathing apparatus.

“By that stage the level of exhaustion was extreme and they were getting to the early symptoms of heat stress.”

He said the money raised would ensure the Alfred Burns Unit was the best-equipped in the country.

The race winner Michael Ward was from Melbourne’s Eastern Hill Fire Station who finished with a time of 03:21.