Risked Death For Fame

Awful Result of a Youth's Attempt to Loop the Loop on Skates.

Probably no feat of daring ever performed in public was so foolhardy as that of William Zimmerman of Indianapolis, who, without previous experience, recently attempted to loop the loop on roller skates and was frightfully injured in consequence. 

Zimmerman who was but twenty years old, had seen the feat of looping the loop on skates and had a great desire to try it. He begged permission and when his request was granted went into it despite the pleading of his family and friends. He had never tried the feat until the night on which he met with the accident.

In the audience was Ray Stevens, who had made the loop successfully several times, who had twice sustained desperate injuries and was then recuperating from hurts. 

The loop is made in the same way that it is made on a bicycle, except that the performer wears a pair of iron skates weighing 100 pounds. The feat had been done only five times when Zimmerman attempted it. Stevens had made the loop four times, while a bicycle rider named Lefever made it once. 

The trip around the upright circle occupies only four seconds, the performer speeding so fast that he is scarcely seen by the spectators. Zimmerman was closely watched by Stevens and the other experts. They say that when the impetus was obtained he lost his balance by looking at the critical moment toward the spectators. When he reached the top of the circle it was seen that he stopped still for a fraction of a second and then fell heavily the eighteen feet to the floor of the circle. As he struck the bottom the iron skates struck him on the head, crushing his skull.