Rappelling 16 Stories Down A Building to Bring Awareness to Opioid Epidemic

Dangling from a rope and looking 16 stories straight down, Danyell Reynolds trembles with fear, closes her eyes and thinks about why she is risking her sanity, if not her life, to bring attention to the nationwide opioid epidemic.

Danyell Reynolds rappels down a 16-story building on Newport Center Drive in Newport Beach, California, on Thursday, June 15, 2017. Reynolds went down the building during the 4th annual The Shatterproof Challenge Rappel Orange County. The event is held to, “end the stigma and change the conversation about addiction”.

Don Reynolds and his daughter, Ella Reynolds, 4, watch Danyell Reynolds, top, as she rappels down a 16-story building on Newport Center Drive in Newport Beach, California, on Thursday, June 15, 2017. Danyell Reynolds is Don Reynolds’ wife and Ella Reynolds’ mother. Reynolds went down the building during the 4th annual The Shatterproof Challenge Rappel Orange County. The event is held to, “end the stigma and change the conversation about addiction”.

Don Reynolds takes some video of his wife, Danyell Reynolds, top, as she rappels down a 16-story building on Newport Center Drive in Newport Beach, California, on Thursday, June 15, 2017. Reynolds went down the building during the 4th annual The Shatterproof Challenge Rappel Orange County. The event is held to, “end the stigma and change the conversation about addiction”.

In her mind’s eye, her mother stumbles, dances and stumbles again. Mom is both happy and tragic, a caring mother who made sure her daughter’s clothes were perfect yet also took her 5-year-old to the worst places to score heroin.

Mom’s life of addiction that started with a Valium prescription when she was 15 years old ended two years ago in death. She was 55.

Yet her fate was all too typical.

Standing at the edge of the side of a building that plunges into forever, Reynolds opens her eyes and relaxes a death grip on the rope and steels herself for her mission — rappelling more than 250 feet without ever having rappelled. Scared of heights, she rappels 16 stories down a building to bring awareness to opioid epidemic – Orange County Register