British stag do reveller is first to swim the Hoover Dam

A BRITON on a stag do was arrested after he became the first person to swim across the Hoover Dam in America.

Arron Hughes, 28, was fined £250 for swimming across the 600ft dam on the ArizonaNevada border near Las Vegas.

The Welsh forklift truck driver from Ruthin, Denbighshire, believes he only survived because nine of the ten hydroelectric turbines were switched off. He had been drinking before he decided to cool off in the dam, with the swim taking about half an hour.

‘We got there and it was absolutely roasting,’ he said. ‘The plan was just to go for a little dip and then I thought “I can make this” so I swam across from Arizona to Nevada. I was sucked towards the wall and had to swim hard.’

He said police told him he was the only person who had made it across alive.

The dam – the second largest in the US - is 726ft feet deep and 275 people have died there in the last ten years. It was completed in 1936 and no one had previously completed a swim across its breadth.