Niagara Falls Stunt Has Two Students Over a Barrel

They had planned the stunt for a year in the hope of becoming the first duo to ride a barrel over Niagara Falls. But an unexpected thing happened on their hoped-for 176-foot treacherous plunge: the barrel leaked and the two seniors at Niagara University in New York were forced to bail out. Harry J. Kallet, 20, of Syracuse, and Michael J. Viscosi, 21, of Scotia, N.Y., were certainly glad to be alive after an Air National Guard helicopter plucked them from shrubs and rocks 200 yards above Horseshoe Falls. “We feel like we were lucky,” Viscosi said. “God was on our side.” When asked why they wanted to be the first two people to ride over the falls, Viscosi said: “We did it because they’re there.” The 10-foot-long, 3-foot-diameter sewer pipe-turned-barrel was wrapped in inner tubes, the ends sealed with plexiglass windows connected to auto shock absorbers. It was retrieved by officials after plunging over the falls. Kallet and Viscosi, who were treated for exposure at Niagara Falls Memorial Medical Center, were arrested and face disorderly conduct charges, with possible jail terms of 15 days and $100 fines. Six other students were also arrested for allegedly helping in the stunt.

--Jazz great Dizzy Gillespie has given up his trademark trumpet. But it’s all for a good cause. Gillespie, 68, donated the un-trumpet-like instrument, with its upturned bell, to the Smithsonian Institution after blowing a few last bursts in a musical ceremony at the National Museum of American History. “The instrument is always the boss,” said the man who’s been making music for half a century. The King Silver Flair trumpet, which achieved its distinctive shape in an accident in the early 1950s after a dancer slammed into it while it was sitting on a music stand, was enshrined in the jazz collection, along with Lester Young’s saxophone, and was given a special place of honor--on composer Irving Berlin’s piano. Roger Kennedy, museum director, said that the trumpet “now belongs to the nation.”

--Soviet cosmonaut Svetlana Savitskaya’s exploits in space are well-documented. In 1984, she became the first woman to walk in space. However, for a more mundane encore, albeit not record-setting, Savitskaya, 38, gave birth to a baby boy weighing 7 pounds, 6 ounces, according to a Tass report. Her space walk lasted 3 hours, 35 minutes.