This is a 2-minute video about the history of some of the daredevils:
From ABC News/Good Morning America:
For more than a century, daredevils have been tempting fate at Niagara Falls.
Archive for the 'Niagara Falls Daredevils' Category
From the Niagara Falls Review:
It’s always fun to watch people take risks.
But what about taking some of your own?
“No way. Not that high. I’m too scared,” said Matt Peat, a 12-year-old St. Catharines resident, moments after watching Dean Sullivan rappell 300 feet off a crane, face forward, without a breaking system.
“I’m better over here, on the ground” said Peat.
Sullivan was just one of the attractions at this weekend’s Daredevil Days festival in downtown Niagara Falls.
From the Niagara Falls Review:
What a letdown. Daredevil Days was a disappointment even before it began.
We were promised daredevil Dean Sullivan would be sliding down a 1,000-foot rope, dangling from a helicopter, using only his hands to prevent him from splattering. Instead, he’s rappelling from a crane. And it’s only 200 feet tall.
It doesn’t add up. Maybe if he does it five times, you’ll get your thousand feet.
Daredevil Days, which started last night, is like The Simpsons episode when Bart wins a radio contest whose prize is $10,000 or an elephant. Bart chooses the hoax prize - the elephant. “Where’s my elephant?” he demands.
Where’s my helicopter?
From the Niagara Falls Review:
Gene Sullivan’s on Team Jesus.
It says so on the back of his blue golf shirt. The white lettering on the back proclaims his faith loudly. So does the red cross on the front, emblazoned with a man on a motorcycle alongside the words “Jump for Jesus.”
But it’s when he suits up in a special leather uniform and jumps on his Honda XR650 bike and jumps through a wall of fire that his faith is most clear.
It’s symbolic of his own path, from what he is convinced would have been one of darkness into the light of faith.
“It’s the biggest jump I ever did,” said the 61-year-old, who will perform the act five times during Daredevil Days on Queen Street. “And I didn’t have too much to do with it.”
From the Niagara Falls Review:
Once a carnie town, always a carnie town?
That’s the logic both downtown businesses and the tourism industry are using to get you to buy into events like Monday’s plunge from the Skylon Tower by daredevil Dean Sullivan and next month`s Daredevil Days festival.
Niagara Falls has a nearly 200-year-old history of stuntmen and stuntwomen. As long as people with more courage than common sense have been coming to Niagara Falls, they have been defying death by going over, jumping from, walking across or riding through the incredible geographic features that define Niagara Falls.
When Sullivan rappelled from the Skylon Tower, it revived the dormant Niagara Falls tradition of cheating death to amuse the masses.
“You have to go back to our roots. They came here to see the daredevils,” said Wayne Thomson, a city councillor and chairman of the Daredevil Days festival coming up in August.
“After you look at the falls… what do people wonder about? What are they fascinated about? They’re fascinated about daredevils,” Thomson said.
So, yesterday morning I headed over to the Skylon Tower and got there a little after 11:15. I thought Dean Sullivan was going to be jumping at 11:30. It was a beautiful Summer day, with a slight wind. The wind would pick up a bit from time to time (at one point the rope going from the top of the tower to the bottom was blown quite a bit across the base of the tower), but it never seemed too much. When Dean was ready for the jump, there was barely any wind.
As we waited for the jump, more people gathered. At around 11:20 there was about a hundred people there, and within a few minutes, there was another 100 people there. I would guess there was somewhere between 200 and 300 people who gathered to watch the jump. If anything, by the time Dean actually jumped just after 12:00 pm, there may have been less people as people got sick of waiting.
Since things were delayed, it gave me a chance to see who was there. I’m sure there were more, but I saw representatives from the following media outlets:
- The River 105.1
- WGRZ Channel 2 out of Buffalo - they brought a van with satellite transmission equipment
- WIVB Channel 4 out of Buffalo
- WKBW Channel 7 out of Buffalo
- Tony Ricciuto from the Niagara Falls Review (I was standing beside him when he interviewed the guy from New Jersey for the article)
- Cogeco local cable TV
- CityTV out of Toronto
- CHCH out of Hamilton
- FallsTV (Niagara Falls Tourism)
There were also people wearing Daredevil Days shirts (this event was to promote that event). There were cameras on the building, but I don’t know who was operating those. The newspaper had said that Inside Edition was going to be there, but I didn’t see them and there is nothing on their site yet. There seemed to be a helicopter that circled a lot. I don’t know if that (or those) was part of the regular tours that happen or if they were there for the event.
Here are the pictures I took (video is below):
People were gathered on the balcony of the new Fallsview Casino smoking room
People were standing along the walkway between the Skylon Tower and the Fallsview Casino
People were sitting on the hill waiting for the event
There were two camera operators and some other people on top of the main building
There was a van from New York state…
…with a satellite transmitter on top. It turns out the van was from Channel 2 in Buffalo
This is a nice shot of what his drop was. Near the bottom of the tower you can see a thin white line on the right side, in front of the tower. That was his rope.
This is the top of the Skylon Tower before anything was ready
This is the top of the tower just as they started to get ready
This is the top of the Skylon Tower after he had dropped his rope. There was some sort of tarp under the rope at the top which I assume was so the rope didn’t rub against the concrete and fray/break
That is Dean’s head peering over the edge
Here he is just before he started his descent
Here he is partway down
As he reached the bottom, he disappeared from view. We certainly assumed he made it, but it wasn’t until he came to the edge that we knew for sure
Here is the video I took. You can view it here on the site, or view it on YouTube:
Lastly, the word has gotten out there already. Here is a list of places where I’ve read about the jump so far:
- Daredevil drops from Skylon Tower - London Free Press (a Canadian Press article)
- Canadian safely leaps from top of Skylon Tower - The Tonawanda News (Niagara Falls Review reprint)
- Man attempts jump of Skylon Tower in Niagara Falls, ON - WIVB Channel 4 (original article)
- Daredevil plunges face first off tower - Canoe CNews (Niagara Falls Review reprint)
- Daredevil Dean - Welland Tribune (Niagara Falls Review reprint)
- Who needs an elevator? - Niagara This Week (original article)
- Daredevil does rappel in Niagara - Nanaimo Daily News (original article) - note: this is a good article that mentions how he burned/melted through 2 sets of gloves on the way down. If you look at the picture as he was at the edge of the building, he seems to be looking down (maybe at his hands?)
From the Niagara Falls Review:
Dean Sullivan, a 42-year-old daredevil from St. Catharines, rappelled from the Skylon Tower observation deck Monday. Wearing a harness, he hooked himself to a rope hanging from the top of the 158-metre tower and slid down face-first using his hands as a brake. It was a publicity stunt to promote the downtown Daredevil Days festival, Aug. 15 to 17.
With only his hands to brake his fall, daredevil Dean Sullivan jumped face-first off the Skylon Tower Monday - attached to only a rope - and landed safely 520 feet on the ground below as hundreds of spectators cheered his success.
The jump, which took place with no safety devices outside of the rope and the waist harness attached to it, occurred around noon.
Note: I’ll have my pictures and video up later today.
From a Niagara Falls Tourism press release that is making the rounds (in this case found on Hospitality Net):
While there are many Niagara events this summer, few will be more chilling than Daredevil Dean Sullivan’s Jump from Skylon Tower on July 7th, 2008. Sponsored by Celebrate Old Downtown and The Skylon Tower, media and visitors alike are invited to watch this magnificent face-first jump from 775 feet above the Falls.
I don’t know why they do this, but the Niagara Falls Review often posts the same article twice to their web site, often with different headlines. The content of the article is usually the same, but the picture may be different. In this case, they have the same article posted about Dean Sullivan, the man who wants to rapell down outside the Skylon Tower. I thought he was going to do it on Canada Day, but now it is planned for Monday. The first article has a picture of him, and the second article has a a short video of him in front of the Skylon Tower.
When a hardcore thrill-seeker tries to play by the rules, the paperwork and red tape start to pile up, but don’t get him down.
“You can’t even believe how much work -to do it legally. There’s all kinds of paperwork,” said Dean Sullivan, the 42-year-old daredevil who plans to jump from the observation deck of the Skylon Tower Monday. He’ll be attached to a rope, using his hands as a brake to stop before he hits the ground.
Sullivan now has the approvals he needs to rappel from the observation deck of the 520-foot tower.
As I mentioned before, I know his father and spoke with him briefly a few days ago. I didn’t tell him I was going to write anything about our conversation, so I am reluctant to include much of what was said. Needless to say, even when a person is experienced, their family still worries!
From a Nanaimo Daily News:
Nanaimo daredevil Dean Sullivan has landed a summer job in Niagara Falls, where he is being paid to leap off a 155-metre tower and break the world record for the longest rappel out of a helicopter.
Sullivan is no stranger to risk-taking.
He made calculated jumps off Niagara Falls last year and in 2004, which required him to grip a rope, anchored above him, precisely at the right time before smashing into the surface below. He also made headlines in 2002 when he bungee jumped off the Lions Gate Bridge at Vancouver’s Stanley Park. He was trying to land safely on a passing cruise ship, but miscalculated and hit his head.
But unlike his past jumps, all illegal, this time he’s following the rules.
“I don’t want to get in anymore trouble,” he said.
Residents in Niagara Falls hope to capitalize on Sullivan’s daredevil antics to help boost the community’s tourism sector, struggling to attract U.S. visitors due to a strong Canadian dollar.
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