Jack McNamara was 2 years old when his father died. On Sept. 5, he climbed the equivalent of the World Trade Center's 110 floors inside Dallas's Comerica Bank Tower wearing his dad's old FDNY turnout coat, which finally fits him now that he's grown. His father, FDNY Firefighter John F. McNamara, worked about 500 hours at Ground Zero after the Sept. 11 attacks before dying of cancer tied to that exposure.
More than 400 firefighters, police officers, and EMTs took part in the 15th annual Dallas 9/11 Memorial Stair Climb, which began with a ceremony at Main Street Garden Park before climbers completed three legs inside the 60-story tower to reach the 110-floor mark, according to CBS News. Participants carried symbolic badges of fallen first responders as they climbed, the outlet reported. Jack, who now volunteers as a firefighter with the White Hall Volunteer Fire Department in Kentucky, told The Dallas Morning News that he cried when taps played near the 48th floor.
A Father's Fight Became a National Cause
John McNamara was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer in 2006 and died Aug. 9, 2009, at age 44. Before he died, he spent hundreds of hours in Washington and Albany lobbying for passage of the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act, the federal law that established health monitoring and financial relief for sick 9/11 responders, according to the same Dallas Morning News account of his advocacy. He also co-founded the NYC Firefighter Brotherhood Foundation to assist sick responders while he himself was fighting the disease.
Jack described his father as a jokester who put others before himself, even while he was sick — a man who worried about people around him even as he battled the cancer that would kill him, per the article. After his death, Jack's mother, Jennifer McNamara, established the FDNY Firefighter John F. McNamara Foundation, known as the Johnny Mac Foundation, which has since provided financial assistance to sick emergency personnel. The foundation also fulfilled one of his final wishes: a list he left in his hospital bag requesting a teen community space be built at the Bayport-Blue Point Library in New York, according to the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation.
In 2019, Jack and his mother were selected to lay the final cobblestones on the 9/11 Memorial Glade at Ground Zero, an installation dedicated to rescue and recovery workers who suffered illnesses or died from toxic dust, according to the National September 11 Memorial & Museum. A photo of a 9-year-old Jack at a Congressional rally is also displayed at the museum.
A Texas Bond Built On Shared Loss
Jack's connection to Dallas runs through Jonathan Duncan, a firefighter with the McKinney Fire Department who has climbed in the Dallas event almost every year since it began, missing only once. Duncan invited the McNamara family to Dallas as an honor family about five years ago, per the Dallas Morning News, and Jack now stays with Duncan and his wife whenever he visits Texas. Duncan began the climb when his daughter was just 1 year old; she's 15 now.
Duncan climbs in memory of Frank J. Bonomo, an FDNY firefighter with Engine 230 who was killed on Sept. 11, 2001. Also participating this year was Joseph Esposito, a 42-year FDNY veteran who lost his brother, cousin, and 11 members of Rescue 5 in the attack. Jack said Dallas and McKinney feel welcoming, and he plans to keep coming back for the climb.
A Death Toll That Kept Growing
Jack has said he wants people to remember not just the 343 FDNY members killed on Sept. 11, 2001, but the more than 600 FDNY members who have since died from health complications tied to the attacks and the recovery effort. That toll has only grown: health advocates reported this month that more than 400 FDNY members have died from World Trade Center-related illnesses since 2001, a figure that has officially surpassed the number killed on the day itself, according to the International Fire & Safety Journal. Toxic dust at Ground Zero contained more than 2,500 distinct chemical contaminants, the outlet noted.
A 25-year health impact report released by New York City and the FDNY this month found more than 10,000 FDNY responders are currently certified with at least one 9/11-related physical health condition, drawn from a quarter-century of monitoring by the FDNY World Trade Center Health Program, according to NYC.gov. The federal World Trade Center Health Program itself was reauthorized by Congress through 2090 and received full federal budget funding this year to guarantee care for more than 145,000 enrolled responders and survivors nationwide, with over 43,000 enrollees living outside the New York metropolitan area.
Firefighters continue to face elevated cancer risk from occupational exposure long after any single incident. This month the Firefighter Cancer Support Network launched a national initiative called The Sacrifice Didn't End on 9/11 to develop the nation's first occupational cancer screening guidelines tailored specifically for firefighters, with release planned for 2027, per Morningstar's coverage of the effort. Occupational exposure remains the leading cause of line-of-duty firefighter deaths.
Part Of A Growing National Tradition
Dallas's climb traces back to a movement that began in September 2005, when five Denver firefighters scaled 110 stories in full gear. The National Fallen Firefighters Foundation partnered with organizers in 2010 to standardize the format, which is now hosted 40 to 50 times a year across the country, according to Dallas 9/11 Memorial Stair Climb event history. Similar tributes have played out this month in cities including Jacksonville, Kansas City, Hesperia and Placerville.
Texas has its own historical link to Ground Zero: 72 members of Texas A&M Task Force 1 deployed to New York City immediately after the attacks and spent nine days working in the wreckage, their first federal disaster response assignment, according to KAMU Public Broadcasting. For Jack, wearing his father's coat up 110 floors was one more way of keeping that history — and its ongoing cost — in front of people who might otherwise only remember a single day.
