Police to charge man after Niagara Falls stunt

NIAGARA FALLS, Ontario -- A man who went over Niagara Falls with only the clothes on his back and survived will be charged with illegally performing a stunt, park police said Tuesday.\nKirk Jones, 40, of Canton, Mich., is the first person known to have plunged over the falls without safety devices and lived. He could be fined $10,000.\n"It was an impulsive one-second thing and in a second and a half I was in the water," Jones said in a telephone interview with WXYZ-TV in Detroit.\n"I was in the water for about eight seconds. ... I was immediately enveloped by what seemed like tons of water."\nFamily and friends said Jones had been considering the stunt for years -- but more so in recent weeks. One friend said Jones hoped to make a lot of money from the notoriety.\nStunned tourists described seeing Jones float by on his back Monday in the swift Niagara River, go headfirst over the churning 180-foot Horseshoe Falls on the Canadian side, then pull himself out of the water onto the rocks below.\n"He just looked calm. He just was gliding by so fast. I was in shock really that I saw a person go by," Brenda McMullen told WIVB-TV in Buffalo.\nJones was not seriously injured and remained hospitalized in stable condition.\nSurviving a leap from Niagara Falls had intrigued Jones for years, said his mother, who had spoken to him only briefly since the jump.\n"He said he always thought there was a spot you could jump and survive," Doris Jones, 77, told The Associated Press from her sister's home in Keizer, Ore. "We never agreed to it. We thought it was risky."\nEric Fronek, 21, also of Canton, said his friend had been talking about possibly going over the falls for weeks.\n"No one believed he would actually do it," Fronek said Tuesday. "He said, `If I go over and I live, I am going to make some money.'"\nNiagara Parks Police Inspector Paul Fortier said police believe they have a videotape of the jump made by someone who accompanied Jones. That person has not been charged.\nFortier said Jones was undergoing psychological tests.\nBrian Merrett, chairman of the Niagara Parks Commission, called the stunt "stupid."\n"Our people went down in the gorge and got him," Merrett said. "That's why we don't condone this. It puts all of our people -- the fire department, the paramedics, everyone -- at risk to do the rescues"