Thousands Climb Aon Center Stairs To Benefit Lurie Children's Hospital
(CBS) -- More than 2,500 people have been climbing the 1,643 steps to the top of the Aon Center Sunday to benefit Lurie Children's Hospital. Some did it more than once.
David Roeske is one of the elite climbers.
"I was fourth," he says, looking at the results. "10:49."
"Fourth man," the official tells him.
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10 minutes and 49 seconds to climb 80 floors.
Roeske lives in New York City.
"I'm doing the Empire State Building in a week and a half and I just randomly saw somebody post this on Facebook and I thought this would be a good way to test my fitness ahead of that because I haven't done a stair race since last October.
"I guess I'm in decent shape but not as fast as I'd hoped."
He's not just climbing the 80 floors one time.
"Five. Eight. Maybe ten. We'll see."
Roeske says the only thing that'll stop him is his hotel check out time.
Lurie Children's Hospital was expecting the stair climb to raise more than $600,000.
At the top of the Aon Center - on the 80th floor - 17-year-old Tony Ostrowski of New Lenox and his stepmother Jackie waited for the stairclimbers known as Tony's Tigers.
Tony did not climb. He's too tired from the chemo.
"He had a small lump in his middle left finger. We thought it might have been a cyst. The doctor wasn't sure, so when they took it out, it was diagnosed as a Ewing's sarcoma. Which is a very rare form of bone cancer."
Tony was diagnosed in August. Last month he had an amputation and reconstruction.
His friends who were stairclimbing were texting him as they went up.
"It's overwhelming. All these people care. You don't even realize that they want to be here to support you. It's awesome."
