His team had been on its way to a game when a reportedly disorderly Delehanty was kicked off a train by the conductor near the bridge. Former Star staffer and author Michael Clarkson is completing the first in-depth book on Niagara daredevils. Copyright owned or licensed by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited.
All rights reserved. To order copies of Toronto Star articles, please go to: www. More : Man rescued after falling into water below Niagara Falls On Monday, an unidentified man in his 30s or 40s jumped over the railing 9 metres above the falls and was swept over in front of hundreds of Victoria Day witnesses in an apparent suicide attempt.
He is listed in serious condition at Hamilton General Hospital. Report an error. Journalistic Standards. About The Star. More News. It also tells the stories of those who have attempted it. The third attempt to go over the falls was the bloodiest.
In July , Charles A Stephens tied a 45kg anvil to his feet as ballast for his barrel. He was torn apart as a result, with only a tattooed right arm remaining. On display in the exhibition is the huge wooden barrel belonging to George Stathakis, who decided in he wanted to write book series about the mystical history and future of humanity. He thought going stunting would be a good way to fund it. So he kitted out his barrel with a mattress and three hours of oxygen supply, then took a pencil, notebook and pet turtle "Sonny Boy" with him.
He survived the plunge, but it turns out that the plunge isn't the worst part. It's being trapped behind a wall of water and continually buffeted where no rescue parties can get near. The barrel was discovered 18 hours later. Stathakis had suffocated, but the turtle survived. The parade of stunters was stopped in when William 'Red' Hill Jr, a souvenir shop owner from Niagara Falls, became the latest to die.
He was trying to continue the legacy of his father, who had run the Niagara rapids in a red barrel three times and operated rescue boats. Of course, there is room for many other potential dangers, and many depend on the type of craft in which you go over.
All daredevils have gone over the Horseshoe Falls rather than the rockier American Falls. You can see why when you compare the photos below -- note the rocks at the base of the American Falls. Still, the force of the water and the rocks at the base of the Canadian Horseshoe Falls is no cake-walk. One recent theory of why some Niagara daredevils survive and some don't is offered by Paul Gromosiak, a Niagara Falls historian. He has a theory about "water cones" -- water pressure that builds up into a sort of "bubble" that then cushions the fall.
Atkinson thinks it's more likely, at least in the case of the most recent Falls survivor, Kirk Jones we discuss Jones in a later section , that survivors simply rode the water like a body surfer. He compares it to falling down a slope rather than splattering on a flat surface. Others have theorized that getting into the water at the right spot upstream usually close to the shore and going over the brink at the right spot are also key, along with having good cushioning to absorb shock in the craft you ride in.
As of , 16 daredevils have made documented trips over Niagara Falls. Eleven have survived. Psychologists who have studied male daredevils say that they have higher levels of testosterone, but lower levels of a chemical that regulates pleasure and arousal. So, basically, they have a slightly different biochemistry that makes them need a higher level of excitement than those of us less inclined to seek out dangerous situations.
Many of the daredevils who have gone over the Falls have been described by their friends as "having no fear" of doing anything. As the allure of the Falls grew, law enforcement began trying to prevent people from attempting the stunt. There is now a law against going over the Falls, referred to as " stunting without a license.
That law didn't stop many of these daredevils, though. In the following sections, you'll find out their stories. Annie was a year-old, retired school teacher and widow from Bay City, Michigan, who claimed she was only The year was She thought that going over the Falls was the way to fame and fortune. She designed an airtight barrel actually a modified pickle barrel and hired a manager to publicize the event. On her birthday, October 24th, she climbed into the barrel with her cat and went over the falls with an audience of reporters and tourists watching.
Having compressed the air in the barrel to 30 psi with a bicycle pump, she strapped herself in with pillows and an anvil for ballast. She survived the plunge. She was pulled from her barrel 17 minutes after going over the Falls. Other than a concussion and a small cut on her head, she was deemed okay. The fame she sought was short-lived, however. She made money posing for pictures with her barrel, but efforts by her manager to convince her to make appearances in venues she deemed unworthy were always in vain.
Her idea had been to travel around the country, speaking about her courageous journey, but that never materialized. Click here for more information on Annie Edson Taylor. On July 25, , Bobby Leach became the first man to go over the Falls.
He was a circus stuntman from Cornwell, England, and claimed he was going to be the first to face the "triple challenge": making a barrel trip through the rapids to the whirlpool, parachuting from the Upper Suspension Bridge into the river upstream of the rapids, and going over the Falls in a barrel.
Leach accomplished the first two challenges in and Then, on the afternoon of July 25, , Bobby Leach climbed into his 8-foot-long 2. This is a section where the Niagara River's current heads toward the Canadian shore. It took 18 minutes for Bobby to reach the Falls and another 22 minutes for someone to recover him once he plummeted to the base, where the barrel got stuck in the rocks. Bobby Leach survived but broke his jaw and both kneecaps.
He spent the next six months in the hospital. Bobby eventually left the hospital and toured the world with his barrel. In , while in New Zealand, he slipped on an orange peel , fracturing his leg.
His leg became infected and was amputated, and Bobby Leach died of complications two months later. The next daredevil to challenge Niagara Falls was Charles Stevens. Charles was also from England and was also something of a stuntman. He was a barber who performed high dives and parachute jumps and was well-known as "The Demon Barber of Bristol.
He went to Niagara Falls in to go over the Falls in a very heavy, Russian-oak barrel. Bobby Leach and William Hill, Sr.
His stubbornness was the death of him. He became the third barrel rider to go over the Falls and the first to die doing so. His barrel was large and heavy, with straps for his arms. He strapped an anvil to his feet for ballast, put his arms through the straps and reluctantly agreed to take a small tank of oxygen. When the barrel hit the water at the base of the Falls, the anvil broke through the bottom, pulling Charles with it.
All that was recovered was his right arm, still strapped in the harness. Jean Lussier lived in Quebec until he was 16 and then moved to New Hampshire so he could learn English. When he was 36, he heard about Charles Stephens' attempt at the Falls and was intrigued enough to want to give it a try himself. With the help of the Akron Rubber Company, he built a 6-foot 1.
The open center section, where Jean was to ride, had an air cushion and valves hooked to air tanks that would provide him with 40 hours of oxygen in the event he was trapped under water. He made his journey on July 4, , and survived. The ball's ballast was ripped off before he even went over the Falls, and several of the inner tubes ending up bursting, but he remained relatively unscathed.
Another seeker of fortune, he sold pieces of his famous rubber ball as souvenirs and even resorted to selling pieces of rubber tires once the real thing was gone. He made plans, years later, to build another, much larger ball and go over American Falls, but he never saw this plan to fruition. George Stathakis was a chef who lived in New York. He came to Niagara Falls in with the idea of gaining fame so he could earn enough money to publish his books on metaphysical experiences.
Stathakis often rowed in the Niagara River, going closer and closer to the Falls with each trip. He reportedly spoke of the Falls in mystic terms. Having studied the trips of both Charles Stephens and Jean Lussier, George decided to go with a heavier barrel even though Stephens' heavy barrel had lead to his death.
George and his friends built the barrel, ending up with a reported 2,pound kg vehicle of enormous strength. On the day of his ride, Stathakis brought along his pet turtle , Sonny Boy, who was over years old, as a good luck charm and to tell the story in the event George didn't make it.
Unfortunately, the barrel became stuck behind the curtain of water and could not be removed for somewhere around 18 hours. While it is assumed he survived the plunge, he only had enough air for somewhere from three to eight hours, and he ultimately died in his attempt. Sonny Boy survived but never had much to say about it. For 21 years, no one went over the Falls; then, in , William Hill, Jr. He had been living in the shadow of his father, William Hill, Sr.
The younger "Red" Hill made three trips through the rapids like his father, but never made the fortune nor received the fame he thought he should. Finally, he decided he had to go over the Falls in order to make his name. His limited funds prevented him from building a heavy barrel like he had used to ride the rapids; instead, he put together a relatively flimsy craft made of 13 large inner tubes held together by straps and encased in a fishing net.
He called it "The Thing. On August 5, , he entered the river upstream. After two hours, he finally went over the Falls. It broke apart when it became caught under the falling water. It took two minutes for pieces of it to begin to surface.
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