Chip Brewster goes Over the Edge for good cause

HOUSTON – A stunt that won't just raise your heart rate, but also raise funds for a great cause.

KPRC2's Chip Brewster took part in an effort to rappel down 20 stories at a hotel downtown to help raise money for the Special Olympics.

"here we had a local scaffolding company build the scaffolding for us in advance and then we come in with the ropes, set all the ropes up in the morning, test everything out first,  make sure everything is going to work the way we think it's going to work," Alexis Roccos, with Over the Edge, said. "All of our ropes are anchored to the building structure. The scaffolding is just here to make it easier to negotiate the edge."

"We're treating this as an OSHA workspace," Roccos said. "All of the equipment is rated to at least 5,000 pounds and everything we do is redundant. We always have two ropes. We have two of everything."

It's an impressive setup that Roccos and his team put together dozens of times each year. But they don't just do it for fun. They're back for the seventh year in a row to help raise money for Special Olympics Texas.

"We were looking for a fundraiser that was something a little different that would appeal to some folks that maybe had a bucket list," Tela Mange with Special Olympics Texas said.

"We've helped non-profits raise over $50 million for local charities around the country, around the world," Roccos said.

"We put on athletic events all over the state for people with intellectual disabilities from two years old and we have athletes up to their eighties," Mange said.

The question you might be asking is how many people have died doing this?

"Zero. And we're going to keep it that way," Roccos said.