Man's mission to raise charity cash by climbing Everest at home

A man who struggled with his mental health during the coronavirus pandemic broke a world record to raise funds for a suicide prevention charity.

Sean Greasley (UK) turned the stairs of his home in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA, into a mountain when he clocked in the fastest time to ascend and descend the height of Everest on stairs.

It took him 22 hours 57 minutes and 2 seconds to go up and down the full 8,848.86 m (29,031.7 ft; 5.5 mi) when he took on the challenge from 3-4 September 2021.

His incredible efforts raised $409.85 for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.

He said: “I decided to break this record because nobody has done this before, not from sea level anyway.

“I wanted to raise money for suicide prevention, so I figured I would combine these two goals into one major goal. We were nearing the end of COVID-19 and I was having a lot of mental problems and issues, which is why this charity is very close to my heart.”

Sean, who livestreamed his attempt on his YouTube account which is usually dedicated to videogame arcades, had to ascend and descend his stairs until the entire height of Everest had been reached in both directions.

He could take breaks when needed but the clock could not stop ticking for any reason.

Sean also introduced his own rules, such as not touching the banister during his climb, as “you wouldn’t have that on Everest”.

He even wrote some custom software to help track his climb, with the running total on his live stream updating every time he returned to the bottom of his stairs and pushed a button.

Sean was dripping with sweat when he finally completed his last lap of his stairs, but joked he wasn’t done there.

“One more victory lap,” he said as he headed back up.

After coming back down, he collapsed in a heap on the floor in a bid to get his breath back.

A couple hours after he completed his attempt, his wife Aleta filmed him hobbling around the house, clearly in pain.

Sean appeared to be unable to bend his legs, and predicted “tomorrow is going to be worse”.

His wife playfully teased him as he tried to pull himself up the stairs without bending his legs so he could finally climb into bed.

Sean also previously held the record for longest videogame marathon playing a dance game alongside his wife, but their record of 38 hr 23 min 30 sec has since been broken.

It’s now held by Carrie Swidecki (USA) with 138 hr 34 sec.