Daredevil sets world records above NJ casino

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. -- Balancing himself at a jaw-dropping 260 feet above the beach, daredevil Nik Wallenda set a pair of world records from the 23rd floor of Atlantic City's Tropicana Casino.

At one point, he was even blindfolded. All eyes on the boardwalk were on him.

"It's just so windy,” Angela Campbell said. “I can't believe it. I just can't believe it."

It was the first time a so-called "wheel of death" stunt has ever been performed off the side of a building, and the extreme height was also record-setting.

"This is life for me,” Wallenda said. “My great-grandfather Karl Wallenda said, 'Life is on the wire and everything else is just waiting.'"

Death-defying skills are in Nik's DNA. The 32-year-old is a seventh generation member of the famous "Flying Wallendas" circus family.

Hours earlier, he wowed a crowd of hundreds inside the Trop, with a high-wire walk 55 feet up.

"It was unbelievable," Kara McCartney of Boston said.

"I was really scared because I thought he was going to fall," Alex Both said.

"You never know what's going to come at you,” Wallenda said. “I train extremely hard, six, seven days a week. Sometimes six to eight hours a day to prepare for this."

Camera crews recorded the aerial acts for an upcoming Discovery Channel series on Wallenda's life. He already held three world records for previous stunts.

"I was born to do this,” Wallenda said. “I started walking the wire when I was two years old."

Three decades later, he's still literally going to new heights.

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