page_title: List of objects that have gone over Niagara Falls
section_title: People
hierarchical_section_title: List of objects that have gone over Niagara Falls / People
caption_attribution_description: English: Baseball player Ed Delahanty
context_page_description: Numerous objects, both natural and artificial, have gone over the Niagara Falls. These events have been the result of both stunts and accidents, most of which have resulted in fatalities. The first recorded person to survive going over the falls was school teacher Annie Edson Taylor, who went over the falls in a barrel in 1901. While her main motives were financial she never made much money for the endeavor. 72 years previously, however, Sam Patch had jumped from a platform adjacent to Goat Island.
  An estimated 5,000 bodies were found at the foot of the falls between 1850 and 2011, and an estimated 40 people are killed each year when they are swept over the falls—most of which are suicides. Other figures suggest that the number of suicides is between 20 and 30, many of which are not publicized by officials. The majority of jumps take place from the Canadian Falls, which account for between 55% and 70% of suicides.
  Mortality rate for the daredevil attempts over the falls is approximately 25%.
context_section_description: 1853 – On July 19, Joseph Avery (Samuel Avery in other accounts) went over American Falls having spent 18 hours clinging to a log in the rapids above the waterfall. He and two other men had been working on a barge and drinking, and attempted to row from Goat Island to the mainland when their boat capsized; the two other occupants of the boat went over the falls immediately. Avery grabbed onto tree roots growing from a rock just east of Chapin Island and weathered the current for eighteen hours. Several attempts were made at rescue the next morning and a boat tethered to the Bath Island Bridge was guided downstream to reach Avery. He was able to climb onto the boat, but it immediately capsized throwing Avery back into the water. Avery was swept over the American Falls to his death. A daguerreotype of Avery holding onto the log was made by Platt D. Babbitt.
  1892 – On July 29, the body of Victor Freiman was recovered from the river below falls; the Pittsburgh Dispatch reported that Freiman's death was a suicide.
  1901 – On October 24, Annie Edson Taylor went over the falls in a barrel. She was unharmed, but exited the barrel bleeding.
  1903 – On July 2, Ed Delahanty, a baseball player, was swept over the falls. He had fallen from the International Railway Bridge, after having been kicked off a night train for drunk and disorderly conduct and threatening passengers. Delahanty's body was later recovered near the Maid of the Mist's berth; his body was mangled and one leg was severed.
  1911 – On July 25, Bobby Leach went over the falls in a barrel.  He spent the following six months in hospital, recovering from two broken knee caps and a fractured jaw.
  1920 – On July 11, Charles Stephens from Bristol went over the falls in a barrel.  Bobby Leach and William "Red" Hill, Sr. urged Stephens to test his barrel over the falls before attempting the stunt, but he refused.  When the barrel was recovered at the foot of the falls, the ballast had pulled Stephen's body out of the barrel, leaving just his right arm in the safety harness.
  1923 – On May 2, Fred Dean, a worker at the Rosli Hotel, Niagara Falls, Ontario, committed suicide by leaping into the water from Prospect Point. He left behind his hat and a note.
  1928 – On July 4, Jean Lussier safely went over the falls in a large ball with a spring steel frame and a rubber covering.
  1930 – On July 4, George Stathakis, a Greek immigrant working as a chef in Buffalo, New York, went over the falls in a barrel.  Upon impact, the barrel was stuck behind a curtain of water and could not be recovered for 18 hours.  Stathakis had an air supply of up to eight hours – although he had survived the initial fall, he died of suffocation. Stathakis took the plunge with his pet turtle, which was said to be around 150 years old. The turtle survived the ordeal.
  1930 – On September 5, the body of an unidentified woman went over the American Falls; the remains were seen in the lower river but sank.
  1951 – On August 5, William "Red" Hill, Jr. (son of William "Red" Hill, Sr.) went over the falls in a craft he named "The Thing".  The vessel broke apart on impact and Hill was killed; his body was found the following day.
  1960 – On July 9, a seven-year-old American boy named Roger Woodward was swept over the falls.  Woodward, his sister Deanne, and his uncle, the boat driver, James Honeycutt were in a 12-foot (3.7 m) aluminium fishing boat powered by a 7.5 horsepower (5.6 kW) motor which capsized. Roger, who was wearing a lifejacket and remained buoyant, was rescued by the Maid of the Mist at the bottom of the falls; Deanne was pulled from the river 20 feet (6.1 m) from the lip of the falls by two bystanders—John Hayes and John Quattrochi. Honeycutt died in the accident.
  1961 – On July 15, Nathan Boya (also known as William Fitzgerald) went over the falls in a rubber ball nicknamed the "Plunge-O-Sphere". The ball hit rocks on impact and bounced, but Boya was uninjured.
  1981 – On August 29, Dunia Sayegh, a 28-year-old resident of Toronto, dropped her two-month-old son, Hesham, over the railing and into the river ju
caption: Delahanty with the Senators in 1903
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