Radio New Zealand - Te Reo Irirangi o Aotearoa

Six-year-old Jayden first to blow up a building

Updated at 9:00 pm on 2 August 2012

A Queenstown boy will become the first person in the country to blow up a building when he pushes the button that will implode a 14-storey Christchurch building at 8am on Sunday.

The Radio Network house will be the first earthquake-damaged building in the city to be brought down by implosion.

The right to detonate it was auctioned off for $26,000 on Trade Me.

It was won by a group of eight demolition companies who offered it to the Child Cancer Foundation, which nominated six-year-old Jayden Halliwell, who is currently being treated for kidney cancer and is expected to have surgery soon.

Jim Shilton of Shilton and Brown Demolition says a visit to a children's cancer ward years ago inspired the idea.

He'd been in a bad accident and was feeling sorry for himself, he says, when a nurse took him to the children's cancer ward and he realised how well off he was by comparison.

Mr Shilton says Jayden's eyes "are going to light up when he pushes that button".

Copyright © 2012, Radio New Zealand