British free climber scales Seoul skyscraper, detained at 72nd floor

Fox News Sunday's Power Player of the week Emily Harrington on being drawn to the challenge and fear of free climbing rock walls. 

A British man was detained after climbing more than half way up the world’s fifth-tallest skyscraper in Seoul with only his bare hands on Monday, authorities said.

More than 90 emergency, police and other personnel were dispatched to the 123-story, 1,820-foot-tall Lotte World Tower, after the man was spotted scaling the building on Monday morning, the Seoul fire agency said in a statement.

The man, in his 20s, reached the 72nd floor, which is about 1,020 feet high, before officials took him to a gondola lift and moved him inside the building, the statement said.

FREE CLIMBER SCALES ANOTHER LONDON SKYSCRAPER

South Korean media identified the man as free climber George King-Thompson. The reports said he was carrying a parachute and told police that he wanted to BASE-jump from the top of the building.

Fire and police authorities didn’t immediately confirm the man’s name or his motive.

King-Thompson was arrested in 2019 after scaling the Shard in London — the U.K.’s tallest skyscraper at 1,017 feet— after the owners of the building pressed charges against him for trespassing. He was sentenced to six months in prison and served three.

A British man climbs Lotte World Tower, the tallest skyscraper in Seoul, South Korea, on June 12, 2023. The British man was detained Monday after climbing more than half way up, according to the authorities. (The Seoul Metropolitan Fire and Disaster Management Headquarters, via AP)

In 2021, he climbed the 36-story Stratosphere Tower, a residential block in east London’s Stratford neighborhood and reached the top in less than half an hour. He said he picked the