Unidentified Man Survives Niagara Falls Plunge
Published at
iStockphoto/Thinkstock(NIAGRA FALLS, Ontario) — A man who climbed over a retaining wall and leaped into the Horseshoe Falls in Ontario, Canada, earlier Monday is at an area hospital with life-threatening injuries, according to news reports.
Witnesses — many of whom were out celebrating Victoria Day, a Canadian holiday — told the Niagara Parks Police Service that they saw the man, believed to be in his 40s, climb high above the Canadian side of the falls and jump.
He later appeared in the lower Niagara River basin near the Journey Behind the Falls observation deck.
“He went over the falls and survived,” parks police Sgt. Chris Gallagher told the Niagara Falls Review. “He did this of his own accord.”
The man reportedly was found by park police before he collapsed. He was lifted out of the falls by a crane and then taken to a Hamilton-area hospital with life-threatening injuries.
The Niagara Falls Review said the unidentified man’s leap was the fourth time a person had survived a jump over the falls without a barrel.
Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio