31/07/2014
Man Attempts to Break
Record Using Hair to Cross
River; Dies of Heart Attack
Instead!
A record-holding Indian stuntman
known for using his long hair in
weird ways died Sunday as he
attempted to cross a river on a zip-
line attached to his ponytail.
Officials say Sailendra Nath Roy, 49,
was halfway across the Teesta River
in West Bengal when he suffered a
massive heart attack and died. His
body, held to the wire by his ponytail
70 feet above the river, hung for
nearly 45 minutes as horrified
spectators, who had come to cheer
him on, watched from a nearby
bridge.
Roy, a police officer, made it about
300 feet across the 600-foot wire
before he became stuck.
"He was desperately trying to move
forward. He was trying to scream out
some instruction,” Balai Sutradhar, a
photographer who was covering the
stunt, told BBC News. “But no one
could follow what he was saying.
After struggling for 30 minutes he
became still.”
Roy earned a Guinness World Record
in 2011 for traveling the farthest
distance along a zip-line using his
hair. In that stunt, he covered 271
feet on a zip-line at the Neemrana
Fort in India.
Last year, he used his ponytail to pull
a train and four train cars, a stunt he
previously completed in 2008, Sky
News reported. In 2007, he swung
between two buildings with his
ponytail tied to a rope.
“His wife used to urge him to quit
doing dangerous stunts,” an
anonymous friend told the BBC. “Mr.
Roy convinced her that crossing the
Teesta River would be his last.
Unfortunately, that became his last
stunt."
Roy had no permission to do the
stunt and had set up the zip-line
earlier in the day. He wore a life
jacket but had little else in the way
of safety gear. The BBC reported
there were no doctors or emergency
personnel on site.
"We were proud of his bravery,”
Roy’s younger brother, Benoy, told
Sky News. "He was sure to win, but
destiny has taken his life and the
most beloved member of our family
as well.