💔 “I may be injured, I may be on prosthetics, but there is still nothing I can’t try to do — and that is true for so many others as well…” In a deeply moving display of resilience, Benjamin Hall — senior correspondent for Fox News — has opened up after completing an extraordinary and gruelling challenge over the weekend: climbing 104 floors of the World Trade Center in support of a powerful cause, turning personal hardship into a message of hope and determination for others facing adversity.

The senior correspondent tells PEOPLE he took on the grueling Tunnel to Towers climb to prove “nothing has to stop you.” When he reached the top, all he could think was, “How lucky are we to be here?”

Benjamin Hall with Fox News Media president and executive editor Jay Wallace on June 7 (left); Hall training for the climb (right).Credit : 

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Fox News senior correspondent Benjamin Hall took on a grueling physical challenge for a good cause this weekend, climbing 104 stories to the top of the World Trade Center.

The 43-year-old British-American journalist completed the Tunnel to Towers Tower Climb on Sunday, June 7, summiting One World Trade Center, and doing so with a significant physical disadvantage.

Hall was reporting on the war in Ukraine in 2022 when his group came under fire from Russian missiles. He was the only survivor and was hospitalized for months with near-fatal injuries, which included losing a leg on one side and a foot on the other — and losing function of both a hand and an eye.

After years of recovery, Hall tells PEOPLE he was ready to take on the Tower Climb, which the “Fox Fleet” team has been supporting for the past four years as a national sponsor. During the event — a tradition since 2015 that honors the life and sacrifice of all 9/11 heroes, including FDNY firefighter Stephen Siller and FDNY Captain Billy Burke — 1,250 participants climb the stairs to One World Observatory, where they can look out on the two reflecting pools that mark where the Twin Towers once stood.

Ahead of his climb, Hall raised thousands of dollars for the Tunnel to Towers Foundation, which offers mortgage-free homes and housing assistance to veterans and families of fallen heroes.

“Looking back on today, I can only think what an incredible experience it was,” he says. “I’d spent the last few months preparing for this climb. I didn’t know how difficult it would be. I didn’t know how painful it might become. But I never doubted for a second that I would reach the top.”

He admits that around floor 80, it grew tougher, “but while it was physically hard, it was never mentally hard — not for a single second. That’s because I knew exactly why we were doing it and who we were doing it for.” Thinking of the 9/11 first responders, he says, “made what I was doing feel like the easiest thing in the world.”

“When we reached the top and looked out across New York City, I felt an overwhelming sense of joy and gratitude. How lucky are we to be here? How important it is not to waste a single moment. How much we can achieve when we come together to help others,” he reflects.

Hall completed the climb with his lead doctor from Brooke Army Medical Center, Dr. Joe Alderete, who helped rehabilitate him in the aftermath of the Ukraine blast.

“At the top, I became a little emotional thinking about where this journey began,” he says. “Four years ago, I was lying on a C-17 military aircraft in the middle of the night, barely alive after being wounded in Ukraine. When I landed in San Antonio, Joe came aboard to receive me. He looked at me and said, ‘We’re going to get through this. You’re with us now.’ “

“Today, four years later, we climbed to the top of the World Trade Center side by side,” he adds. “We never doubted we’d get here, but standing together at the top made me realize just how far we’ve come. From those darkest days to this moment. From devastating injuries to achieving something I wasn’t sure would ever be possible again.”

Ahead of the event, Hall told PEOPLE, “This is the first major physical challenge I’ve taken on since I was injured, so it has given me something real to aim for, train for, and push toward. That alone has meant a huge amount to me.”

“But the biggest reason I wanted to do this climb is to raise money for Tunnel to Towers and the incredible families they support,” he continued. “I know what my own family went through when I was injured, and I can only imagine the pain of families who have lost someone completely — especially those who gave their lives in service to this country. If I can do even a small thing to help them, that means the world to me.”

Hall and his wife, Alicia, share four daughters: Honor, Iris, Hero and Sage. The oldest three were just 6, 4 and 2 years old at the time of his life-changing injury. When the reporter was advised to seek further treatment at the Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas, thousands of miles away from their family home in London, the couple made the difficult decision to send Hall alone in order to not uproot their daughters’ lives.

“It’s a journey, isn’t it? Life’s a journey,” Alicia told PEOPLE back in 2023. “It would be selfish of Benji and I to wallow in self-pity when much worse has happened to many more people.”

Years later, Hall said he took on the physical challenge of the Tower Climb as a way to “send a message to anyone who has been through something difficult: nothing has to stop you.”

“I may be injured, I may be on prosthetics, but there is still nothing I can’t try to do — and that is true for so many others as well. Whatever your setback, whatever your injury, whatever has held you back, you can pick yourself up and keep moving forward,” he told PEOPLE during his final days of training. “And, even better, you can do it in service of other people.”

“At a time when people often talk about how divided we are, I think events like this show the opposite. At the heart of this country, people still come together. They still show up for each other. They still help. That is what makes communities strong, and it is what I want to teach my children — that one of the most important things we can do in life is help others.”

Just a year after his injury, Hall told PEOPLE that he was looking at the world “in a much more confident way.” Three years on from that, he feels good enough to scale one of the tallest buildings in the world.

“I’m excited because I love a challenge,” Hall admitted before the big day. “I love doing things with people, pushing myself, and finding those sparks in life that make you feel alive.”