NIAGARA FALLS, Ontario, May 21 (UPI) -- A 40-year-old man survived a fall over the Canadian Horseshoe Falls but suffered life-threatening injuries, police said.
Niagara Parks Police Service in Niagara Falls, Ontario, said it was too soon to determine if the man had attempted suicide, but witnesses said the man climbed over a retaining wall about 8 yards from the falls and deliberately jumped into the water, the Buffalo (N.Y.) News reported.
The man washed ashore the Niagara River basin and was pulled to safety during an almost 2-hour rescue by multiple first responders and police on the Canadian side. Firefighters rappelled down to the man, who was lifted out of the gorge via helicopter.
The man was flown to a hospital in Hamilton, where he is being treated for a collapsed lung, a flail chest -- a life-threatening medical condition that occurs when a segment of the rib cage breaks under extreme stress and becomes detached from the rest of the chest wall -- numerous gashes and hypothermia, police said.
The man, whose name has not been disclosed by police, defied the odds -- only four people have been known to survive the plunge, the swift river and the rocks, said Paul Gromosiak, the Town of Niagara historian.
The three previous survivors who survived the falls unprotected were a 30-year-old Ontario man who attempted suicide in 2009; a U.S. resident accused of staging a stunt in 2003; and 7-year-old boy who survived wearing a life vest after the boat he was in capsized in the upper Niagara River in 1960, Gromosiak said.
