Daily Archive for May 14th, 2005

Firefighters rescue woman from brink of Niagara Falls

Published
by
Graham
on May 14, 2005
in Niagara Falls History and Niagara Falls News
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From CNN (reproduced below):

The woman is lifted on a rescue basket to safety

The woman is lifted on a rescue basket to safety.

Firefighters rescue woman from brink of Niagara Falls

Wednesday, February 25, 2004 Posted: 10:21 AM EST (1521 GMT)

(CNN) — Only 100 feet from the brink of Niagara Falls, rescue teams late Monday afternoon kept a woman from plunging over the Canadian Horseshoe Falls and a likely death.

Shortly after 4:30 p.m., Niagara Parks Police were told of a woman floating in the Niagara River, several hundred yards from the falls, a police statement said.

The woman grabbed onto a throw-rope police tossed down the icy banks of the river.

Fred Hall of the Niagara Falls, Ontario, Fire Department was the first rescue worker to reach her.

“All the way down, I just kept saying: ‘I’m coming. I’m coming. Just hang on, hang on,’” Hall said.

Within an hour, the woman was lifted on a rescue basket to safety, trembling from the cold and slipping in and out of consciousness from hypothermia.

“There is no foul play suspected in relation to this incident and it appears that the fifty-year old woman entered the river of her own free will,” the police statement said.

Witness: Niagara Falls plunge ‘amazing’

Published
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Graham
on May 14, 2005
in Niagara Falls History and Niagara Falls News
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From CNN (reproduced below):

Witness: Niagara Falls plunge ‘amazing’

Tuesday, October 21, 2003 Posted: 1:49 PM EDT (1749 GMT)

Terry McMullen

Terry McMullen

Niagara plunge

An unidentified man is taken into custody after his plunge over Niagara Falls.

NIAGARA FALLS, Ontario (CNN) — Tourists visiting Niagara Falls this week were shocked when a man plunged over the waterfall and lived to pull himself out of the water. The man, who used no protective device and had nothing but his clothes on, was taken into custody Monday.

CNN Anchor Soledad O’Brien spoke Tuesday with Terry McMullen, an eyewitness to the rare event.

O’BRIEN: You’re a tourist, right? And you were at the top of the falls — tell me if I have the scenario right here — kind of looking out, looking down.

MCMULLEN: Right.

O’BRIEN: Suddenly you see this guy. Was he at the same level where you were? Was he at the top of the falls?

MCMULLEN: He was at the very top of the falls, probably about 20 feet from the edge. And my wife had actually noticed him in the water. I was busy trying to change the film in my camera. And she said, she goes, “Oh my god, there’s a person.” And I looked down and sure enough there he was.

He was basically looking right back at me when she mentioned that and I looked down and watched him. He had his hands above his head, face up, feet first, and the next thing I know, over the falls he goes.

O’BRIEN: What was his demeanor? Was he — did he look distraught? Did he … ?

MCMULLEN: Not at all. He looked actually very calm. He wasn’t screaming. He wasn’t yelling. He wasn’t doing anything any normal person wouldn’t do, I don’t think. But he was very, very calm. And over he went.

O’BRIEN: So if you had to guess, would you say — it looked intentional? It didn’t look like somehow he was, he had, he fell in in any way?

An unidentified man is taken into custody after his plunge over Niagara Falls.
An unidentified man is taken into custody after his plunge over Niagara Falls.

MCMULLEN: He wasn’t thrown in, or I don’t think he slipped in or anything like that. It was just, I don’t know what happened. But it just — it was very strange to see somebody that complacent or maybe he was just resigned to the fact that he was going to go and he just didn’t worry about it. But it’s — it was something to see, let me tell you.

O’BRIEN: Yes, I can imagine. OK, so the guy goes over. What did you do? You must have been utterly shocked. Did you run and get help?

MCMULLEN: Oh, we were. We were shocked. We went around the corner to where you can see down at the bottom of the falls, and we ran down probably about 50 yards or so, and nobody had seen anything.

We saw the Maid of the Mist coming in, the boat that takes you over to the falls. And we saw them gathering some rope, saw a bunch of people on the boat actually hollering and waving and stuff.

So we figured that they might have seen the body or something. Because we figured that’s what it would be — it would be a body because we figured there’s no way that anybody could survive.

O’BRIEN: So when you saw this guy … come out alive, we’ve seen pictures of him covered in towels, police escorting him away … give me a sense of what that was like.

MCMULLEN: Oh, it was amazing. Like I said, we went over there, and I had my Nikon with me. I started taking pictures. I saw the guy crawling out of the basin down there. He crawled up on a rock. He got on top of the rock and just collapsed. I guess he was pretty wore out from his venture.

And then some rescuers come up from down in the tunnels that are down underneath here, and they actually had to rappel down and go get him. So we had a picture — we took pictures of all of that. So it made for a pretty exciting first day of vacation for us.

Police to charge man who survived plunge over Niagara Falls

Published
by
Graham
on May 14, 2005
in Niagara Falls History and Niagara Falls News
. 1 Comment

From CNN/AP (reproduced below):

Police to charge man who survived plunge over Niagara Falls

Tuesday, October 21, 2003 Posted: 2:25 PM EDT (1825 GMT)

Niagara survivor

Kirk Jones waits at the shoreline at the base of the Canadian Horseshoe Falls after surviving a plunge over Niagara Falls.

NIAGARA FALLS, Ontario (AP) — A man who survived a plunge over Niagara Falls with only the clothes on his back will be charged with illegally performing a stunt, Niagara Parks Police said Tuesday.

Kirk Jones, 40, of Canton, Michigan, is the first person known to have gone over the Canadian Horseshoe Falls without safety devices and lived. He could be fined $10,000.

Stunned tourists described seeing Jones float by on his back Monday in the swift Niagara River, go headfirst over the churning 180-foot waterfall and then pull himself out of the water onto the rocks below.

“He just looked calm. He just was gliding by so fast. I was in shock really that I saw a person go by,” Brenda McMullen told WIVB-TV in Buffalo.

Jones was not seriously injured and remained hospitalized in Niagara Falls in stable condition.

Police said they were ruling out the possibility it was a suicide attempt.

“We’re investigating it as an intentional act,” Niagara Parks Police Inspector Paul Fortier said.

He said psychological tests were being conducted at the hospital.

Fortier said police have a videotape of the act that they believe was made by someone who accompanied Jones. That person has not been charged.

Water rushes over the falls at a rate of 150,000 gallons per second.

Only one other person is known to have survived a plunge over the Canadian falls without a barrel or other contraption — a 7-year-old boy who was wearing a life preserver when he fell into the water in a 1960 boating accident.

No one has ever survived a trip over the narrower and rockier American falls.

Since 1901, 15 daredevils have taken the plunge in barrels or other devices, including a kayak and a water jet-powered personal watercraft. Ten survived, said Niagara Falls historian Paul Gromosiak, who has written books on the subject.

Suicides are not uncommon at Niagara Falls, although police are reluctant to give numbers.

Lynda Satelmajer, of Brampton, Ontario, said she and her family watched the man as he entered the river and then went over the falls.

“He seemed a bit edgy, kind of jumping around,” she said. “He walked over to where we were standing and he jumped and slid down on his backside and went over the brink.

“It was really freaky, actually. He was smiling.”

Copyright 2003 The Associated Press.

More on going over the falls

Published
by
Graham
on May 14, 2005
in Niagara Falls History and Niagara Falls News
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The post I just made reminded me of the person who went over the falls a few years ago without any protection and survived. Kirk Jones certainly had his 15 minutes of fame. At first it was thought it was a suicide, and then it turns out that he had someone filming it.

I found a couple of articles on the CNN web site about people going over the falls:

Kirk Jones

Other People

Maid of the Mist tours sail into new season

Published
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Graham
on May 14, 2005
in Niagara Falls Attractions and Niagara Falls News
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From CNN/AP (reproduced below):

Maid of the Mist tours sail into new season

Thursday, May 5, 2005 Posted: 11:42 AM EDT (1542 GMT)

A Maid of the Mist ship exits the base of Horseshoe Falls

A Maid of the Mist ship exits the base of Horseshoe Falls.

A group of tourists brave opening day on the bow of a Maid of the Mist ship

A group of tourists brave opening day on the bow of a Maid of the Mist ship.

NIAGARA FALLS, New York (AP) — Capt. Gary English powered the Maid of the Mist away from its dock and headed toward Niagara Falls and its walls of rushing whitewater looming more than 17 stories high.

He had 300 people aboard the boat for its first run of the year on April 21. By the season’s close in October, more than 2 million tourists will have been showered by mist from the famous waterfall aboard one of the double-decker boats in the Maid of the Mist fleet. Boats called Maid of the Mist have been bringing people here for more than 150 years.

“The water temperature is 36 degrees. They’re going to be cold out there today,” English said as the steel boat churned through the lower Niagara River and into the basin that catches the water after its drop over the falls.

Passengers standing outside on the decks pulled the hoods of blue disposable raincoats tight against the spray but made no moves to avoid it, not wanting to miss the spectacular view of Niagara Falls from below.

“It’s brilliant,” said Ailsa Clark, visiting from Australia with her sister, Wendy.

English seldom fails to please as he ferries passengers for this close-up view. Adults pay $11.50 and children $6.75 for the 20-minute ride.

“You don’t often see anyone who’s not happy at the end,” he said.

“They’re cold and wet, but they’re happy,” added mate Laurie Acker, who works alongside English in the small cabin.

Niagara Falls is located on the international border between the U.S. and Canada, with cascades on both sides. The American Falls are 184 feet high and 1,060 feet wide, and the Canadian Falls — also called Horseshoe Falls — are 176 feet high and 2,200 feet wide. The falls are not the world’s widest or tallest, but the sight of their powerful flow — 748,000 gallons per second, much of which is harnessed today for hydroelectric power — has been drawing tourists since the early 1800s.

Niagara Falls State Park was created in 1885, and visitors have been riding boats here called the Maid of the Mist since 1846. The early models were wooden sidewheel steamboats. They’ve evolved into steel, 74-ton vessels powered by two powerful diesel engines.

The larger three boats, which launch from the Canadian shore, hold nearly 600 passengers. Two smaller boats leave from the American side with room for about 300.

The Maid of the Mist captains see their share of the darker side of the Falls, sometimes coming across the suicide victims who leap from above. Even before this season’s opening day, a body was discovered at the base.

“That’s the earliest one yet,” Acker said.

English recalled seeing the upended kayak of ill-fated stunter Jessie Sharp bob by. Sharp rode his kayak over the brink of the Falls in 1990 as friends videotaped him. The 28-year-old Tennessee man was so confident he’d survive he had dinner reservations for later in the day. His body was never recovered.

Looking up at the brink from the Maid of the Mist, the danger seems obvious.

“That’s the problem,” said English, who grew up near the Falls and got his first job on the tour boats at 16. “People who are going to do these things don’t take a look.”

The Maid of the Mist has attracted its share of celebrity tourists over the years, including Marilyn Monroe when she was shooting “Niagara” in the 1950s. Princess Diana, Sylvester Stallone, Mother Theresa and Joan Rivers have also been on board.

Copyright 2005 The Associated Press.

Man swept over falls

Published
by
Graham
on May 14, 2005
in Niagara Falls News
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From The Review
Saturday, May 14, 2005, page A3

NIAGARA FALLS - Niagara Parks Police say a man was swept over the falls Wednesday afternoon. According to a press release, the man, who appeared to be between 30 and 40 years old, had been spotted in the fast-flowing waters of the upper Niagara River around 3:45 p.m. then was seen heading over the brink. Maid of the Mist boats were enlisted to search for the man at the foot of the falls. Police believe the man entered the water of his own accord. They are continuing to investigate.