Cross The Thames On A Zip Wire This December

By Zoe Craig Last edited 88 months ago

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Cross The Thames On A Zip Wire This December
Enticing? A mock-up of what the zip wire might look like, from the charity's website.

Got a spare £50k? Then you could be one of 20 lucky people to cross the Thames on a zip wire this December.

The once-in-a-lifetime zip line will be 170ft high, and transport you over the river between St Thomas' Hospital and Victoria Tower Gardens, right next to the Houses of Parliament.

You could reach speeds of up to 40mph as you 'fly' the 1,519ft, from the roof of St Thomas' to the gardens on the other side.

Around 20 people will be able to try the stunt on 2 December, as long as they raise at least £50,000 for the Evelina London Children's Hospital, part of Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust.

But if you're worried about raising that kind of money, there's one free place being offered as part of a competition. You can enter here.

Victoria Tower Gardens, where the 'zippers' will 'land'. Photo by Ian Wylie.

The crazy scheme is the brainchild of a London Fire Brigade chief who wants to raise money for the hospital that saved his son's life.

Sitting at his nine-year-old son's bedside at the Evelina Hospital across the river from the Houses of Parliament, fire brigade deputy assistant commissioner Andy Roe pondered that he could rig up a zipwire across to the Houses of Parliament.

"I realised that I could use my specialist skills to rig up a zip wire from the roof of the hospital and that perhaps people would pay for the chance to speed across it like a firefighter.

"This is not a trip for the fainthearted. It will feel like you are flying directly into the Houses of Parliament. There is no other white knuckle ride like it in the world.

"[But] there's no better way to support one of the leading children's hospitals in the country in helping them to continue their vital work.

"My son might not be alive if it weren't for the NHS, especially Evelina London, so I wanted to find a way to thank the remarkable staff."

Visit the Support Evelina Hospital's facebook page for more details.

The money raised will go towards the £2.7m needed to build a dedicated Clinical Research Facility at Evelina London to improve treatments for autism, epilepsy, congenital heart disease, kidney disease and allergies.

Find out more here.

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Last Updated 07 November 2016