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The Sun
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Sun
Daredevil dressed as wizard ‘lucky to be alive' after SOMERSAULTING down hill as he warns cheese chasing is ‘dangerous'
A CHEESE chasing daredevil is flipping lucky to be alive after taking a brutal tumble down a steep hill. Heart stopping footage showing Ty Loerzer Fitzjones, 22, flying into the air and flipping into a somersault has been viewed more than 100 million times. 8 8 8 Miraculously Ty walked away from the horror tumble with only cuts and bruises and was knocking back a pint in the pub hours later. Doctors were left astonished that he survived the fall without breaking any bones, or worse. He should have done it more Caerphilly but escaped with his em-mental health intact. Crackers music student Ty has been dubbed The Cheese Wizard and is being mobbed by stunned fans. Footage of his fall is quickly becoming a global sensation on TikTok and YouTube. Ty visited the cheese rolling event in Gloucestershire with pals last Monday, dressed in a long black cape and pointy hat. From Kilburn, London, Ty joined thousands of visitors from around the world who gather every year. He was determined to break the course record for the fastest descent in pursuit of a 7lb wheel of Double Gloucester. At the event, which dates back to 1826, fearless contestants aim to beat the cheese to the bottom of Cooper's Hill, even though it travels at speeds of up to 100km an hour down the 180m slope. Ty said: 'Years ago, growing up in France, I saw a Netflix documentary about cheese rolling and thought it looked like great fun. 'It was a glorious day, there was a really nice friendly atmosphere even though we had to wait an hour for The Cheese Master to start the race. 'I didn't have a plan but my girlfriend Lola sewed a chinstrap on my hat so I wouldn't lose it, and held on to my glasses so I wouldn't break them, and I just went barrelling off down the hill. 'I started running, thinking 'This is easy, I'm beating everybody' but then I lost my footing and suddenly there was a big drop, and that's when I thought 'Oh dear, this is not what I planned.' 'The next thing I remember is waking up in hospital three hours later in a compression suit and everything was a bit fuzzy.' 8 8 8 When he came round after three hours, Ty was given a CAT scan and a number of cognitive tests. Astonishingly there was no sign of brain trauma, and he hadn't even fractured any bones. He was discharged without pain medication and headed to a nearby boozer where he was mobbed by tourists who witnessed his fall and were stunned to see him up and about. Ty commented: 'I've got a massive bruise on the top of my skull, cuts and scratches all down my arms and back, and I ache all over but I'm very grateful to still be here. 'I can laugh about the whole kerfuffle but it wasn't funny for my friends watching or my parents when they got the frightening phone call saying I was unconscious in the back of an ambulance. 'It's my first near death experience and it doesn't feel real yet. 'I definitely would not do cheese rolling again, I'm not going to push my luck. 'I wouldn't let anyone I love do it either, it's really dangerous and people are injured every year - it's not safe. 'It's very weird to think hundreds of millions of people around the world have watched me fall over, but I'm not embarrassed - I survived relatively unharmed.' 8 8
BBC News
29-05-2025
- Climate
- BBC News
Himalaya base jump record attempt cut short by severe storm
A man planning to use a wingsuit to break the world record for the world's highest-ever base jump has been thwarted by a severe Howell, from Martock in Somerset, planned to jump and fly down from 8,300 metres (27,230ft) on Lhotse, a neighbouring peak to Mount Everest in the Himalayas. However, after reaching the peak, a storm set in and Mr Howell and his support team were forced to walk back down the said: "The end result was disappointing, we didn't get the jump. We were waiting on this tiny little ledge for about three hours in pretty stormy conditions until it wasn't feasible to wait any longer." Mr Howell had attempted the challenge in 2024, but it was cut short due to bad said the weather for the most recent attempt on Lhotse, the fourth-highest mountain in the world, "wasn't like anything I've experienced before".Visibility was so bad, he said, that the team had to resort to basic methods to judge the conditions and distance."We throw a rock off and count how many seconds it takes to impact [at the bottom of the slope] and from there we have a general idea how big [the drop] it is. Base jumping is an extreme sport that involves jumping from fixed objects, using a parachute or is an acronym that stands for Buildings, Antennas, Spans (such as bridges) and Earth (such as cliffs) - the four recognised categories of objects people can jump from. Mr Howell said the year had been a "pretty bad season" for forecasting weather accurately, with lots of storms."We were unfortunate but we did our best to pull it off," Mr Howell added."You have to look at the forecast four or five days in advance because that's how long it takes you to get from the base camp to the exit point and things change, so it's a lot harder to organise the logistics."Third time is the charm."The current record for the highest base jump was set by the late Valery Rozov, who jumped 7,700m (25,300ft) from Cho Oyu, also in the Himalayas, in later died in a base jumping accident in 2017.
ABC News
09-05-2025
- Sport
- ABC News
After losing his fingers and toes this 85yo found a way to keep rock climbing and share the skill with others
Watching him traversing his way up the face of the limestone cliff overlooking the Queanbeyan River, it's hard to tell that Armando Corvini has no fingers or toes. In a sport famous for requiring strong fingers and forearms, Mr Corvini has had to re-learn rock climbing after a severe accident in the Himalayas that he says divides his life into two. The 85-year-old is climbing the wall with large pruning scissors clipped to his harness to trim the prickly blackberry bushes getting in the way of the young children he is teaching to climb. The youngsters watch on in awe as Mr Corvini precisely picks out the next handhold and pulls himself up. A week earlier, Mr Corvini led a group of about 40 students caving near Wee Jasper. But while that was fun, rock climbing has always had his heart. Mr Corvini says his relationship with rock climbing "is almost like a love story". He first climbed as an 18-year-old with ten fingers and toes in the Dolomites near his childhood home of Trieste, Italy. He knew immediately he was hooked. Canberra Climbers Association vice president, and assistant belayer, Brian Mattick said in Italy, Mr Corvini was "climbing the hardest routes of the day". "In those days you took a lot more risks than you do these days," Mr Mattick said. However, Mr Corvini left his mountaineering gear behind when he migrated to Australia in 1966. "Armando, your climbing career is over because Australia is the flattest continent in the world and there are no mountains there," he recalls being told by the president of his Italian alpine club. Yet, when Mr Corvini discovered rock climbers in the Blue Mountains, his passion returned with fire. He was soon attacking peaks in New Zealand and the Himalayas. He summitted the 7,161-metre tall Mount Pumori near the Everest region at the age of 49, before tackling several other Nepalese mountains taller than 6,000 metres. As with all love stories, the more Mr Corvini fell in love with the mountains, the more he exposed himself to risk. In 1994, Mr Corvini led a group of Canberra-based mountaineers on the first Australian ascent of the south and southwest ridges of the 6,812-metre-tall Ama Dablam in the heart of the Nepalese Himalayas. Sir Edmund Hillary — the first man to summit Mt Everest — declared Ama Dablam "beautiful but unclimbable" in 1953. "But Ama Dablam was the hardest climb of my life." The trip encountered issues from the start. Mr Corvini was forced to belay three people at a time and the planned five-day trip ran into 10 days. "We ran out of food. The weather was terrible," Mr Corvini said. When the expedition returned to base camp and Mr Corvini pulled off his boots and gloves, his fingers and toes were badly frostbitten. At the age of 56, he lost nine fingers and all his toes. He spent four months on the 10th floor of the Canberra Hospital thinking he'd never climb again. "So, my first goal was to walk there. "When I came out of hospital, I had to think about what I wanted to do with my life." After an 18-month recovery, Mr Corvini started volunteering as a gym instructor with the YMCA, coaching children with physical disabilities. He noticed the centre had a climbing wall and began climbing every week. Soon, reluctantly, he agreed to become an instructor. The next week, he nervously stood in front of a class of six students with what was left of his thumbs hooked onto his harness to hide his lack of fingers as he began his first ever lesson. Everything was going well. Then Mr Corvini pulled out some ropes to show the students how to tie knots. The next week he showed them how to traverse a wall and "from that time everything went extremely well". "Don't look at me for style. I've got my own style of climbing," he said. "Obviously I can't do anything that is very smooth, but my hands are very strong. He may no longer be able to tackle the most difficult routes at the crag, but Mr Corvini gets a new-found sense of joy from passing his love on to others. He's been guiding for more than 20 years, now runs his own outdoor adventure business and has just published a memoir of his adventures. Sitting on a rock belaying, neck cranked back watching one of his students climb in preparation to represent the ACT at the National Youth Climbing Championships, Mr Corvini is as happy as ever. Assistant guide Penelope Jones said the children always love him. "Everyone loves Armando," she said. "He loves climbing and it's infectious. "Some people are afraid of getting old, but I always think if I'm old and like Armando, then that would be great."
