Tragic second shot at Niagara

NEW YORK A man who occupied a fleeting spotlight after surviving a plunge over Niagara Falls without protection in 2003 has died after he went over again, this time during an apparent stunt with an inflatable ball, police say.

The body of Kirk R Jones, 53, was recovered on June 2 in Youngstown, where the Niagara River feeds into Lake Ontario, police announced yesterday. The empty ball had been found earlier in the rapids above the American Falls, one of three falls at Niagara.

New York state park police said they believed Jones was at Niagara Falls on April 19 and may have tried to go over the falls in the large ball.

‘‘The attempted stunt was unsuccessful, which resulted in the demise of Mr Jones,’’ the park police said.

Although such stunts are illegal, several daredevils have survived trips in various contraptions, beginning with Annie Edison Taylor, who rode over in an oak barrel in 1901.

Jones, at the time an unemployed salesman from Canton, Michigan, gained celebrity in October 2003 when he became the first person known to survive the 55-metre plunge over Niagara Falls without a safety device.

A Canadian court fined Jones and banned him from the park for a year.

After his court appearance in December 2003, he said depression had led him to climb down an embankment and float feet first over the falls, but ‘‘all my problems were left at the bottom of that gorge’’. He described the water as being like an ice bath and the pressure being so great ‘‘I thought it would rip the head from my body’’.

Jones began touring with a circus in January 2004, but his celebrity eventually faded, and he had not been in the public eye in recent years. Police listed his current address as Spring Hill, Florida.

At least two other men have survived unprotected plunges over the falls since Jones did it. In 1960, 7-year-old Roger Woodward was swept over the falls wearing a lifejacket and survived. AP