Some athletes and daredevils are always looking for a challenge that is bigger and more dangerous than the last one. Not only will their fans be expecting something even grander, but they have to satisfy that part of themselves that wants the thrill.
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00:00Some people never stop pushing the adrenaline envelope, and unfortunately, these daredevils
00:04lost their lives while attempting some insane stunts.
00:08Here are a few notorious examples of stunts that went horribly wrong.
00:12Wu Yongning was a 26-year-old daredevil who performed stunts on rooftops — really, really
00:17high rooftops — with no safety equipment.
00:21At the time of his death, he had shared nearly 300 videos of the stunts, so it's not like
00:25he was inexperienced at what he was doing.
00:27The one that ended Yongning's life was performed at the top of a 62-story skyscraper in China.
00:33In the video that recorded the tragedy, Yongning can be seen performing a pull-up stunt and
00:37then struggling to climb back up to safety.
00:40In one of the most heartbreaking moments ever caught on video, he then loses his grip entirely.
00:45What's particularly awful about this story is that Yongning was mostly doing it for the
00:49money.
00:50According to the New York Post, an unknown entity was supposedly offering $15,000 for
00:55the stunt, and Yongning planned to use the funds in part to pay for his wedding.
00:59According to the Daily Mail, a man named Kyle Lee Stocking attempted to duplicate a feat
01:03he saw on YouTube in March 2013.
01:07If it had gone as planned, the 22-year-old would have swung beneath the 110-foot Corona
01:11Arch in Utah after jumping off the top.
01:14But he misjudged the length of the rope he was using, and instead of swinging, he struck
01:18the ground, and the impact killed him.
01:20The tragedy highlighted a growing problem of people trying to imitate stunts they see
01:24on YouTube, from swallowing cinnamon — which, according to CBS News, can give you a collapsed
01:29lung — to jumping off moving vehicles.
01:32While YouTube claims to prohibit content that encourages dangerous behavior, the video that
01:36inspired the fatal stunt is alive and well as of 2018, nearly five years after the accident,
01:43with no warning on it.
01:44Russian BASE jumper Valery Rossov was trying to conquer the seven summits, hoping to jump
01:49from the highest peak in each of the seven continents while wearing a wingsuit.
01:53According to IBT, Rossov had already jumped from the Olvetana in the Antarctic, and in
01:572009, had even leaped into an active volcano.
02:00Even in the air, I feel that I did it.
02:06Rossov held the world record for highest BASE jump in a wingsuit — that was for jumping
02:11from a 23,688-foot peak in Tibet, which is north of Mount Everest.
02:16So the 22,000-foot peak he was jumping from at the time of his death was actually a little
02:21bit lower than his record, but that doesn't make it any safer.
02:24The 52-year-old daredevil died when he crashed into a cliff after leaping off a peak in eastern
02:29Nepal.
02:30In another tragic BASE jumping accident, well-known climber Dean Potter and his friend Graham
02:34Hunt died in Yosemite National Park when they jumped from Taft Point wearing wingsuits and
02:39crashed into a rocky ridgeline.
02:41This accident highlights the sad fact that experience doesn't necessarily protect you.
02:46Potter had made the exact same jump at least 20 times, and Hunt was probably similarly
02:51experienced.
02:52That's something that I need to practice, because otherwise, it just doesn't happen.
02:57Other climbers expressed regret at Potter's death, but the words of fellow climber Doug
03:01Robinson may have summed it up best.
03:03According to BBC News, he said,
03:05"...we're very sad, but not very surprised."
03:07He was pushing the envelope all his life.
03:10Free diving is the diving version of free climbing.
03:12It's more or less done without equipment, and it's about a million times more dangerous
03:16than the version that's done with equipment.
03:19According to ABC News, roughly 2 percent of the free diving population dies every year.
03:24That's 100 deaths per 5,000 divers.
03:28In 2002, free diving champion Audrey Mest was trying to break the world record dive
03:32of 531.5 feet.
03:35Everything went well, until she was on her way back up.
03:38According to the Miami Herald, her cause of death was equipment failure.
03:41In no-limits free diving, an air tank fills a balloon, which helps the diver get quickly
03:45back to the surface.
03:47In the end, Mest's air tank didn't have enough air in it to inflate the balloon.