The first person to ever survive going over Niagara Falls in a wooden barrel later died from what absurd irony?

The Orange-Peel Story Belongs to Bobby Leach

The famous “absurd irony” is usually told about Bobby Leach, not the first person to survive the plunge. Leach went over Niagara Falls in a barrel in 1911. Years later, while walking in New Zealand, he reportedly slipped on an orange peel and broke his leg. Complications from the injury, including gangrene, led to his death.

The contrast makes a memorable story: a man survived the Falls but died after an ordinary street accident. Leach’s barrel was steel, however—not wooden.

The First Survivor Was Annie Edson Taylor

Annie Edson Taylor was the first person known to survive going over Niagara Falls in a barrel, in 1901. Her barrel was wooden and padded inside. She lived for another two decades, dying in 1921 at age 82.

So the orange-peel death is not the ending of Taylor’s story. It belongs to a later daredevil whose survival of the Falls made his much less dramatic fatal accident seem almost impossibly ironic.