When it comes to adrenaline, some people never stop pushing the envelope. Of course,
there's a lot of risk involved in doing dangerous things, and unfortunately,
these daredevils lost their lives while attempting some insane stunts.
It's really hard to stand out from the crowd in the era of social media,
because almost nothing hasn't been done before,
and almost everything that has been done has become a social media trend at least once.
So special recognition to social media star GiGi Wu, who found a gimmick that was new,
at least for the time: bikini hiking! Wu began each hike dressed in normal outdoor gear,
but would change her clothes at the top. Wu loved hiking alone and felt anyone should be able
to do it, according to The Washington Post. Of course, hiking alone comes with safety concerns,
and she even turned back from some hikes that she felt were unsafe for soloing.
The self-proclaimed "bikini climber" posted a lot of really impressive images of herself
standing in treacherous places, wearing clothing that's really only fit for a very warm beach.
But then something terrible happened. According to The New York Post, Wu fell 65 feet into a ravine
while on a solo hike on Yushan Mountain in Central Taiwan. She was evidently lucid enough to make a
phone call after falling, though she said she couldn't move because of a leg injury. Sadly,
rescuers weren't able to reach her until at least a day later, and by then she'd frozen to death.
Wu Yongning was a 26-year-old daredevil who performed stunts on rooftops — really,
really high rooftops — with no safety equipment. At the time of his death, he had shared nearly
300 videos of the stunts, so it's not like he was inexperienced at what he was doing.
The one that ended Yongning's life was performed at the top of a 62-story skyscraper in China.
In the video that captured the tragedy,
Yongning can be seen performing a pull-up stunt and then struggling to climb back up to safety.
In one of the most heartbreaking moments ever caught on video, he then loses his grip entirely.
What's particularly awful about this story is that Yongning was mostly doing it for
the money — according to The New York Post, an unknown entity was supposedly offering $15,000
for the stunt, and Yongning planned to use the funds in part to pay for his wedding.
Jessi Combs set the land speed record for a four-wheeled vehicle in October 2013.
Her jet-powered vehicle hit 398 miles per hour, but Combs wasn't satisfied.
She made a few attempts to bust her own speed record and clocked more than 483 miles per hour
in those attempts, but these runs went unrecorded because of technical issues.
Undaunted, Combs decided she was going to aim for 619 miles per hour,
which would beat Kitty O'Neil's land speed record of 512 miles per hour from 1976.
Combs was in her jet-powered car on a dry lake bed in Oregon's Alvord Desert, when USA Today
says the front wheel suffered a mechanical failure, causing the entire wheel assembly
to collapse. Combs had accelerated to nearly 550 miles per hour at the time of the failure, and
the resulting crash killed her instantly. Combs had written on Instagram just a few days prior:
"People say I'm crazy. I say thank you."
In 2015, 24-year-old Cossack horse rider Anastasiya Maximova was performing at an acrobatic
show when her foot got caught in her stirrup. The mishap caused Maximova to fall, and her panicked
horse dragged her around the arena before bolting into a seating area as other performers tried
their best to corral it. Maximova died from her injuries before she could make it to the hospital.
Tragedies that happen during stunts are no less tragic than any other fatal accident,
but there is something to be said for dying while doing the thing you love.
Maximova reportedly once had this to say about Cossack riding:
"It is a naughty, beautiful and bright sport. It gives me shivers."
Most of us don't need to build a rocket to know that the Earth isn't flat. Still,
there are some people who are convinced that it's all a big
conspiracy that literally every scientist in the world is in on.
It seems that Mike Hughes was a proud Flat Earther, but he wanted the rest of the world
to be convinced, too. So he built a rocket, which he launched from the California desert.
From up high in the air, he was sure, the rocket would show that the Earth was flat.
The problem was, Hughes didn’t just send cameras aboard the rocket;
he wanted to see the flat Earth with his own eyes. Unfortunately, his rocket crashed
shortly after launch, and he was killed before he could reach the goal altitude of 5,000 feet.
After Hughes’ death, his publicist, Darren Shuster, claimed to The New
York Times that Hughes didn't actually believe the Earth was flat. He said,
"He was eccentric and believed in some government conspiracies, for sure, but it was a P.R. stunt."
Either way, it's not quite clear.
"I believe it's flat.”
“I believe you don't believe that and you just want a free trip to space."
"A lot of people think that."
Sixty-year-old Angela Madsen was a Paralympian and an inspiration for anyone trying to come
back from a serious injury. Madsen was injured while playing basketball in 1981,
and a botched surgery cost her the use of her legs. In 1997, she became a competitive rower,
and in 2012, she won a bronze medal at the Paralympic games.
In 2007, Madsen became the first woman with a disability to row across the Atlantic ocean.
Then, in 2009, she became one of the first two women to row across the Indian Ocean. Following
these accomplishments, she set her sights on the Pacific. This time, she planned to go solo.
Tragically, Madsen died 60 days into her attempt to row across the Pacific Ocean alone.
In her last communication, she'd mentioned that her boat needed repairs, but by the next day,
she'd fallen silent, and tracking data indicated that the boat was no longer
being rowed. The Coast Guard found her floating in the ocean on June 22,
2020, still tethered to her boat. So far, no one knows the circumstances that led to her death.
Russian base jumper Valery Rozov was trying to conquer the "Seven Summits," hoping to
jump from the highest peaks in each of the seven continents while wearing a wingsuit.
According to IBT, Rozov had already jumped from the Ulvetanna in the
Antarctic and in 2009 had even leaped into an active volcano.
"Even in the air I feel that, ooo I did it."
Rozov held the world record for the highest base jump in a wingsuit — that was for jumping from
a 23,688-foot peak in Tibet, which is north of Mount Everest. So the 22,000-foot peak he
was jumping from at the time of his death was actually a little bit lower than his record,
but that doesn't make it any safer. The 52-year-old daredevil died when he
crashed into a cliff after leaping off off a peak in eastern Nepal.
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