Faling for you
“Some things can be done as well as others,” said daredevil Sam Patch, the first human to plunge into the waters of Niagara Falls and live. Just 10 days later, to a crowd of thousands, he climbed atop a higher platform and repeated the feat. People championed him as a hero, although the fish thought he was nuts.
Most daredevils who followed this 1829 act didn’t have Patch’s luck. In 1901, Annie Taylor survived plunging over The Falls in a wooden barrel, but fame and fortune didn’t last – she died broke. Bobby Leach used a steel barrel in 1911, surviving with a broken jaw and kneecaps, then died after slipping on an orange peel. After Charles G. Stephens’ attempt, all that remained of him was one arm, still clinging to his barrel.
