15 Death-Defying Stunts

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5 – Rotterdam Building Slide,

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  • Beloved action star Jackie Chan is famous for doing all of his own stunts – and some of them are pretty damn dangerous.
  • One of his most memorable flirtations with death was a freefall slide down the length of Rotterdam’s Willemswerf Building for the movie Who Am I.
  • It’s almost impossible to understand what went on in his mind, since he’s clearly insane for agreeing to this stunt. It involved a lengthy skid down the building’s steeply pitched facade. Chan slipped down 21 stories of slanted glass and tumbled, coming terrifyingly close to the edge. Somehow, he managed to stop on a dime.

4 – The Wing Walker,

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  • Omar Locklear was a famous stuntman renowned for walking across the wings of an aircraft while it was in mid-flight. The funny thing is his career came about by complete accident.
  • The brave pilot first performed his signature trick of walking out onto wings while attempting to repair a faulty engine. That first stroll garnered the attention of filmmakers and gave him a brief, but glorious career as a movie stuntman.
  • Tragically, Locklear died in 1920 while performing this wing stunt. His plane caught fire and crash landed, killing him and his assistant. Although he managed it a few times, this death-defying stuntman couldn’t cheat death forever.

3 – Red Bull Space Jump,

  • In October 2012, Austrian skydiver Felix Baumgartner free-fell from a helium balloon that had risen approximately 39 kilometres up into the stratosphere over New Mexico. The jump was a promotional effort by Red Bull and made headlines all around the world.
  • Felix fell for an entire ten minutes, shattering the sound barrier during his descent and breaking multiple world records.
  • The highly dangerous stunt depended on the successful deployment of his parachute. If it had failed, he would’ve plummeted straight into the Earth and probably come out the other side somewhere in China.

2 – Man on Wire,

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  • In 1974, a French madman – I mean tightrope walker – named Philippe Petit astounded the world by walking between the twin towers of New York City’s World Trade Centre.
  • For the unauthorised feat, Petit rigged a 450-pound cable and a 26-foot long, 55-pound balancing pole. He passed up and back eight times, delighting onlookers and pissing off police who were itching to arrest him. The charges for his illegal, highly dangerous stunt were dropped in exchange for him doing an additional performance for children at Central Park.
  • The incident was the subject of the award-winning 2008 British documentary Man on Wire.

1 – Tightrope Walk Between Hot Air Balloons,

  • In case you aren’t sick of tightrope walkers, here’s one more tale of a person with little to no regard for their own life!
  • In 2013 in the Yunnan province of China, a forty-year-old tightrope walker named Aisikaier Wubulikasimu travelled mid-flight between two hot air balloons.
  • The incredible stunt shattered the world record for quickest time crossing a high-wire between two balloons. He managed to do it in 38.35 seconds, which is about how long it takes me to get out of bed.
  • The acrobat had to traverse an 18-metre long, five-centimetre wide steel beam between the balloons to break the record. He now finds walking across normal, level roads really boring.

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