The legacy of a daredevil
Karel Soucek’s 1985 death due to a failed stunt in Houston led to a landmark court ruling about insurance coverage
Karel Soucek’s gravestone at the historic Drummond Hill Cemetery in Niagara Falls might look cryptic to people who don’t know his legend.
There is a round cylindrical object on top and a curious quotation from the person being remembered:
“It is better for a person to take chance from life … than to live in that grey twilight and not know victory nor defeat.”
Soucek — who died 36 years ago Wednesday in a failed stunt in front of 45,000 people at the Houston Astrodome — was a man of misadventure, both with his life and some of his observations.
And he certainly didn’t live in “grey twilight.” His exploits in a barrel, calling himself the “Last of the Niagara Daredevils,” made international news. A Spectator library file of yellowing clippings and fading photos from his exploits is nearly an inch thick.
Soucek lived in Hamilton, where he worked at National Steel Car. But his dreams went far beyond the factory floor. He believed that big risks would lead to big rewards.
He cast his eyes at the wild spectacle of Niagara Falls — the misty gorge and raging waters, the flashing lights, the wax museums and millions of annual tourists. It was the perfect launching pad for fame and fortune as a stuntman.
Soucek first set out with a near disastrous attempt to ride a moped on a cable over the Whirlpool Rapids. After the two-wheeler derailed, he was narrowly saved from the treacherous waters below by a harness apparatus that held tight.
He followed the setback with a successful ride in a steel barrel through the same white rapids, downstream from the falls. Although the feat went a bit awry with him being stranded for a few hours in the current.
But it set the stage for his biggest glory, to go over Horseshoe Falls in a bright red barrel, the day after Canada Day in 1984.
It was a rough ride over the top, after travelling 120 kilometres per hour in the current. But he survived with only minor injuries to his arm and lacerations to his face. He had a short stay in hospital and ended up with a $500 fine from the Niagara Parks Police.
Clark Bernat, culture and museums manager for the City of Niagara Falls, says it’s an age old question at the Niagara Falls Museum: Why do people risk their lives going over Niagara Falls?
“Half the time we think they are nuts,” he says. “But, in reality, the people are looking for some glory and fame.”
He says the most famous is American school teacher Annie Edson Taylor, 63, who was the first to survive a plunge in a barrel. She went over Horseshoe Falls on Oct. 24, 1901, after first having her cat do a test run. Countless others have died through suicides or accidents over the years. More than a dozen have lived through various stunts.
Soucek’s angle was to recreate the feat in stadiums across the continent by having a barrel fall 55 metres into a tank of water, the same distance as Niagara Falls.
He was poised to make $25,000 for his Houston Astrodome stunt on Jan. 19, 1985 at the 19th annual Thrill Show and Destruction Derby. But it went horribly wrong. The barrel went off course, striking the side of the pool, fracturing his skull and crushing his chest. He died the next day at the age of 37.
As a reporter, I never met Soucek. But after he died, I worked several days on a magazine-style feature about his life. I hooked up with the three members of his crew who took me into his Duke Street apartment. Soucek had no family locally. They all lived in his native Czechoslovakia.
I remember how his home looked like a shrine to Niagara Falls and his daredevil pursuits with pictures and newspaper clippings hanging everywhere. There was a Milk calendar over his desk with a line going through the week he was in Houston. And then on the fateful day — Jan. 19, 1985 — there was a big red ‘X.’
A scribbled note by Soucek described the euphoria he felt when he faced mortal danger.
“You are capable of anything at that moment … there is this absolute freedom.”
I learned in vivid detail about his last days and minutes, about how Soucek was over confident that he could figure out key logistics after he got to the stadium.
He couldn’t find a tank as big as he wanted. A first test barrel missed the receiving waters completely, as did a second one. But when a third attempt landed dead centre, Soucek became convinced it would work out. His last words before they closed the hatch on the barrel were: “I’m ready. It feels good. It’s a go.”
But there is also an interesting postscript to the story. Three years later, in a Hamilton courtroom, a lawyer contested a decision by a travel insurance company not to pay out a $15,000 death benefit to Soucek’s estate.
The company said the stunt was so reckless that his sad demise went beyond the limits of the policy. But Judge Colin Simpson Lazier ruled the death was still accidental and the policy was supposed to cover accidents.
The legal case didn’t receive a lot of media attention but the insurance industry took note, sending companies to the drawing board to prevent similar judgments in the future.
It’s a big reason why policies today tend to have legal wording that basically says, if you’re going to do something extremely dangerous, you’re on your own.