![]() High diving, even at lesser heights, requires practice and a body that can take a beating. That's how most high-divers do it, and many world records meet or even exceed Niagra's 180-foot height, so it's not impossible to survive. However, if anything saved them, it might have been entering the water at the best angle, feet-first. We'll never know how closely these Niagara survivors followed Labov's prescriptions. And in 2009, an unidentified man survived the fall and swam until rescuers saved him. In 2003, Kirk Jones, 40, took the plunge without even a flotation device. In 1960, Roger Woodward, a 7-year-old, fell over the falls wearing a life preserver and survived. ![]() Swim downstream: It is essential that you avoid being trapped behind the waterfall or on the rocks underneath.Įven without Labov's advice, three people have slipped or jumped into the falls without protection and lived to tell about it.Swimming will slow your descent to a degree. Put your arms around your head: Start swimming upon immediately hitting the water, even before you rise up to the surface.You want to avoid hitting rocks directly at the bottom of the waterfall. Jump out and away: Get away from the falls just before you go over.Squeeze your feet together and remain vertical. Even if you hit the water feetfirst, there is a risk or broken limbs. Go over the falls feet-first: The biggest danger in going over a waterfall is hitting your head on something underwater and being knocked unconscious.Take a deep breath: Do this just before you go over the edge because you probably will not have much control while you're in the air, and the water maybe deep.You kick and flail your arms with all your might, but to no avail. Say you're swimming in a river and you suddenly get caught by the current. The shock of sudden entry into cold water can trigger a heart attack, even in healthy people, but if you survive that, the task force gives you less than 15 minutes in water that is freezing or below, and 15 to 30 minutes in water up to 40° F. The United States Search and Rescue Task Force is a little more optimistic. Niagara's waters are in the 30's (Fahrenheit), and Cooper says that gives you about 3 minutes before you black out. But then you have to worry about the cold. That's why kayakers wear helmets," Cooper says.įinally, if you manage to surface, you can float even in a bruising current. ![]() "The risks are all the stuff that's around you. You just have to hope that you get pushed up." Debris could be another killer. "When you're washed in big waves, you can't tell which way is up," Cooper says. If you survived the bubbles, the turbulence and darkness underwater would probably disorient anyone who survived the plunge from Niagara Falls. In Niagara Falls, that would definitely be the case," Cooper says. Everything goes black in big surf because the sunlight is blocked out by the bubbles. "There's so much air mixed in with the water that you can't swim in it. If you miss them, the next is bubbles the plunge pool under a waterfall is like big surf. "Basically, you're going to hit rocks."īut rocks aren't the only threat. He grew up in Buffalo, N.Y., and knows Niagara well. "I can't think of any way to survive that except luck," says Malcolm Cooper, chairman of the Hawaii Masters Swimming Association. The rapids above the falls are clocked at 25 mph, and up to 68 mph over the brink. Six million cubic feet of water rush over the falls every minute during peak daytime hours (upriver dams change the volume).
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