Appears in Newsflare picks
01:49

Daredevil scales 130m building without safety gear - before leaping from top

Content Partner Cover Image
Content Partner Profile Image
Uploaded by a Newsflare content partner

Buy video

Watch the hair-raising moment a daredevil scaled the outside of a 130m building without any safety gear - before leaping from the top with a parachute.

Brit George King, 25, free climbed to the top Alphabet Tower in Georgia - a sky scraper designed as a monument to the Georgian alphabet.

He climbed up and round on the outside of the spiral structure before throwing himself off the top in a knuckle-biting base jump at around 7:40am on Saturday (29).

George, born in Oxford and currently living in Berlin, has climbed and jumped from numerous tall structures across the world, and was captivated by the alphabet tower the moment he saw it.

Days before, on November 25, he snuck into the Alliance Centropolis complex, climbed some stairs, and hopped onto the tallest crane in the country - a 228m structure in Batumi - and jumped off with his parachute.

And to top off his 20-day trip to Georgia he had base jumped off a 55-metre high apartment block in Tbilisi, on November 23.

George also base jumped from the balcony of his hotel in Batumi.

He said: "The alphabet tower was incredible! There aren't words for the feelings involved," he said."

"There's always fear beforehand: I use it to my advantage: it sharpens my senses."

"The crane was unnerving because I was surprised how much it moved around when I was near the top."

"And the apartment block was quite low for a base jump so that was very very scary."

"I've always wanted to jump off brutalist architecture, it's ugly but has an aesthetic, and that building was perfect."

"When I arrive at the bottom of a structure I always look up and I actually can't conceive that I'm going to climb up and jump off."

"My heart is racing and the fear is like a hot liquid running through my whole body."

"But in my mind there are no thoughts, I'm completely locked in."

"During the climb and the jump the fear melts away, it's bliss - I'm not just thinking about the stunt, I am the stunt."

"As soon as I set eyes on the Alphabet Tower I was obsessed: it followed me everywhere."

"It's like an urban helter-skelter: you can take in the views from all directions - it's really special."

The tower has the 33 letters of the Georgian alphabet spiralling up the outside, and is built in a double helix structure like DNA.

George, who has free-soloed over 100 super tall buildings across the world, became well known after climbing the Shard in 2019.

His stunts began when he was around 10, and climbed onto the school roof, he said.

He said: "It's tense, and scary, and never gets easier."

"What I'm doing is incredibly dangerous - one lapse in judgement and I could be dead."

"The real moment of fear comes days, even weeks, before the jump when I do all my planning: thinking about the risks involved, what could go wrong and what I can do to minimise the risk."

"What I'm doing is within my skill level, so the risk is always there, but I can never get complacent."

"During the climb and the jump I just surrender to my instinct, completely absorbed in what I'm doing."

Categories

Tags

From the blog

Stories not Stock: 3 Reasons Why You Should Use UGC Instead of Stock Video

Video content is an essential part of a brand’s marketing strategy, and while stock footage has been a reliable go-to in the past, forward-thinking companies are looking to user-generated content for their video needs.

View post
Content Partner Cover Image
Content Partner Profile Image
Uploaded by a Newsflare content partner

Buy video