A man with a Guinness World Record for travelling the farthest distance on a zip wire attached to a tuft of his hair died while performing the stunt across the Teesta at Sevoke near Siliguri in West Bengal’s Darjeeling district on Sunday.
Sailendra Nath Roy (48) was trying to cross the river suspended from a 600 feet zip cable at a height of 70 feet near the Coronation Bridge. A large number of people had gathered to watch the act.
After covering about 40 per cent of the distance, Mr. Roy could not progress further. Amidst cheers and screams of hundreds of onlookers, he desperately tried to move forward, hanging from the cable and using his hand to inch ahead. Suddenly, there was no movement, and after about 45 minutes, he was brought down.
Mr. Roy was rushed to a local hospital where he was pronounced dead. He had suffered a massive heart attack.
“Mr. Roy was a home guard with the Siliguri Metropolitan Police. He was a professional stunt man and had performed such acts across the country and abroad. He was on leave today,” K. Jayaraman, Commissioner of the Siliguri Metropolitan Police, told The Hindu over the telephone.
According to eyewitnesses, there was no deployment of personnel from the disaster management group or local police for the event.
Mr. Roy held the Guinness World Record for covering a distance of 270 feet on a zip wire attached to a tuft of his hair at Neemrana Fort Palace in Alwar district in Rajasthan on March 1, 2011.
He had also pulled a toy train of the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway with a chain attached to the tuft of his hair for 2.5 meters in Siliguri in September, 2012.
I feel as bad as anyone for losing a life like this, and my condolences to his family, but chasing world records is a needless and stupid obsession for some of us, especially the records that do not exhibit any improvement of human accomplishment, an uplifting of performance standards so to say. So, I feel sad for this individual, but he is no hero or a treasure of this nation in my view.
Sree Sailendra Nath Roy will always be remembered through his Guinness
World Records.
Died doing what he loved to do but died too soon. Condolences.
Such a sad state of affairs where there was no deployment of personnel
from the disaster management group or local police for the event. Had he
been rescued on time, perhaps we could have saved a life.
Very sorrowful end of life. We cheer his good willpower to cross the
river .
It is sad news, however he died doing what he loved and what he was good at. God bless.
Our prayers are with the family members.
May his soul rest in peace.
the moment when you Living your life and lived....RIP
No disaster management personnel to rescue him in case of disaster.
Very sad to lose a hero who would have brought many more laurels
for our country.
Sailendra Nath Roy you will be in the hearts of millions
The feet follow the heart.
He died doing what he loved the most.
RIP SN Roy.
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