Apparently, my sources tell me, when the park police arrested him he told the waiting tourist “Its not always this small…that water is just really cold.” Later the Park Police gave him spankings.
I found this at the Buffalo News
He Yun Chang, 38, of Beijing, was charged with disorderly conduct and exposing himself in public. He was taken to Niagara Falls Memorial Medical Center to be treated for exposure.
“He stripped his clothes off, walked out into the water and made it to 40 to 50 yards from the brink and tied himself off,” said Sgt. Clyde Doty of the Park Police. “But apparently, shortly after, he came loose. So he made his way back upriver – which I still can’t believe, being barefoot and all.”
“This guy doesn’t speak a lick of English,” Doty said. “So we grabbed a tourist who happens to speak Chinese, and he said, “He’s doing an experiment.’ That’s the interpretation that we got.”
Police found the man’s clothes on Goat Island, where he had entered the water.
Doty said that Chang and other performance artists had flown in from Beijing for a two-week engagement and that he had written a detailed plan for a UB faculty member who drove him to the falls.
“He was going to anchor himself near the brink of the falls, while he was naked, and stay there and endure the elements for 24 hours – then somehow climb down the falls and do the same thing at the base of the falls,” Doty said.
Except for the tourist who called police, the stunt apparently attracted little attention among tourists in the area.
The stunt that was attempted Saturday has been tried three times before, according to Niagara Falls historian Paul Gromosiak.
The first to try it was Joe Robinson of Niagara Falls in 1860. Using stilts, he walked across the rapids to an island that now bears his name.
William Hunt of Lockport, a rival of tightrope walker Blondin who called himself Farini, tried to walk to the brink of the falls on stilts in 1864 but slipped and had to be rescued after he made his way to Robinson Island.
The most recent attempt was by James Shea of Niagara Falls in 1927. Stepping off from Green Island wearing sneakers with spikes in them, he nevertheless slipped in the water and ended up on a tiny, rocky island in the rapids, where he resisted efforts to rescue him.