10/22/2003: Niagara faller

Elspode picked up this one. This is now day-old news, but this is one Kirk Jones, who became the first person to go over Niagara Falls without anything but the shirt on his back, and survive.

Dude is incredibly lucky. How lucky? According to one interview I saw, there have been about 150 suicides by jumping Niagara over the years. Nobody ever lived. There have been at least 15 attempts that included barrels or some other sort of protection, and 10 of those resulted in death.

This begs the question: if you try to kill yourself this way and live, do you regard it as the ultimate failure or the ultimate success?

If failure, do you give up, figuring that you're so bad at it that you'll never succeed - or do you keep on trying, to show the world that even though you want to kill yourself, you really are competent at it?

In this case, Jones gets an arrest on the charge of "performing an unlawful stunt within a government-run park", a Canadian law without which one imagines thousands of Canucks hurling themselves over the Niagara ledges.

They don't want people doing this sort of thing because it puts rescue workers under undue stress, although it looks like Mr. Jones should be the only one not charged for that reason, because he is the only one ever to not really need rescuing. And if they want to cut costs, they can skip the free psych evaluation he will now be getting, because we all know the obvious: this guy is disturbed.

Definitely more than 5 attempts have been successful (I've been to Niagara a lot of times, and I read at the museum and online and stuff). Maybe you got those figures transposed, wherein 5 have died and there have been 10 successful attempts? I know at least one guy went over twice.

I think the numbers are only from the 1900s up, and I think they are reversed, based on this page

http://www.iaw.com/~falls/devil_frame.html

And I heard on the news that a kid was swept over the falls some time ago and survived so maybe Kirk is the only one to go over sans barrel voluntarily and survive.

I had pretty much the same thought as UT...if you *were* trying to commit suicide by going over the Falls, and survived, don't you have to figure that the Gods want you alive for some reason?

One account I read said that Kirk had a companion who was videotaping the event. "Jackass", eat your hearts out! Perhaps he can make back the $10k fine on sales of the video? More likely, the authorities will confiscate it as evidence and decline to return it, since it was made during the commission of a crime, and we can't have people profiting off of such things, can we?

I think the kid had a lifejacket. This guy had just his clothes. The two of them are the only ones to survive without a barrel.

Today he was interviewed and said that it was a suicide attempt, but the minute he hit the water he decided he really really wanted to live, and says that this was an awfully stupid thing he's done.

You know, I went over the falls about five years ago. No lifejacket or nuthin'. I thought it'd be a crazy thing to do - and it was.

Of course, it was undocumented, but ask my friend Bob. He was there. He'll tell you I did it.

Nuts....plain..unsalted nuts

Uhhh, breaking ... yer spoasta REPORT the news, not BE it.

Haha! I get it! Niagara <b>Fall</b>er! Ha!

about time.

Yeah, it is about time. I mean, I just couldn't get the ball in the hole. I wanted to, but I just couldn't do it.

Everyone else in the media makes it up too.... I don't see why she's serprized.