NIAGARA FALLS, Ont. - Fifty-two swords go down the hatch in Atlantic City. A
pair of garden shears are gobbled up In Texas. A 120-degree curved sword is
a meal in the making in Ocean City, Maryland. It's all part of World Sword
Swallowers Day, to be marked Saturday.
The first World Sword Swallowers Day was established in 2007 to raise
awareness of the 4,000-year-old art form, honour veteran performers and to
raise money for esophageal research and the Injured Sword Swallower’s Relief
Fund. Ouch.
Shows at more than a dozen Ripley's Believe it or Not! Odditoriums in four
countries are planned to celebrate the daredevils for whom swallowing a
weapon is all in a day's work.
The manager of Ripley's in Niagara Falls, Ont., Tim Parker, said Ripley’s
has been synonymous with sword swallowers since the original auditorium in
Chicago featured the feat at the 1938 World’s Fair.
Toronto’s Vanessa Neil does the deed in Niagara Falls at 2:27, symbolic of
Feb. 27.
It marks the second straight year a female sword swallower - a small portion
of an already slim group of professionals - appears in Niagara Falls. Last
year, Rochester, N.Y.’s Riley Schillaci performed.
“We had a good group of people who came out and watched it (last year) in
awe,” Parker said. “It is a real interesting feat how that actually happens.
I don’t know how long it is between my mouth and the bottom of my stomach,
but they must.”
This is definitely a job for the professionals.
- With files from John Law, Nicole Feenstra, QMI Agency
