David Kirke, the man who performed the world’s first modern bungee jump, has died, according to reports. He was 78 years old.
Kirke rose to fame after jumping from the Clifton Suspension Bridge in Bristol, England on April 1, 1979, wearing a top hat and tails while holding a bottle of champagne, BBC, Guard and The Independent reported.
Three of his friends then jumped off the bridge Guard and the BBC. All four were arrested by the police for disturbing public order and peace and fined them.
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Following that feat, the “Dangerous Sports Club” performed bungee jumping stunts on the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, while another jump from the Royal Gorge Suspension Bridge in Colorado was televised, per The Independent.
About the creation of his “Dangerous Sports Club”, Kirke said vanity fair In 2004: “What we hated was the way formal sports have all these petty, important bourgeois instructors who say, ‘You have to pass five-part exams to do this.'”
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The group went on to perform other incredible stunts, such as sliding down a piano from the slopes of St. Moritz in Switzerland, and even jumping from mobile cranes and hot air balloons, according to The Independent and the BBC.
Speaking to the BBC, Kirke’s family called him a “free spirit” who “would never change the life he led”. They added: “We will miss him greatly.”
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According to Guard and BBC, Kirke said the “real reward” of bungee jumping is that it makes people they will never meet happy and that it “gives them entertainment”.
Kirke, who according to The Independent, died in his bed, “would have been shocked” to know his fate, a family friend told the newspaper. He added that “byronesque in [the] the rapture of living life to the fullest.”
Categories: Trends
Source: HIS Education