CALGARY — A Calgary man got more than he bargained for when he flew over the city in a lawn chair attached to helium balloons and then had to parachute to safety.
Police have charged the man with mischief and say more charges could be on the way.
“It’s the first time I’ve seen anything like it in my career,” said Calgary Police acting Insp. Kyle Grant. “I usually see it on those crazy shows on TV of what not to do.”
An person was spotted floating over the Stampede grounds Sunday in the chair, which was attached to more than 100 helium balloons. He was then seen gliding to Earth outside of the grounds using a parachute.
“He sat in the chair and began floating over Calgary. It’s my understanding that he didn’t have any sort of device to steer the craft and got to a point so high at cloud level that he became a little worried and decided to jump from the chair,” Grant said.
“He deployed the parachute and ended up landing in a green space and rolled his ankle, causing minor injury. He was looked at by EMS, then taken into custody and eventually charged.”
Daniel Boria, 26, of Calgary faces one count of mischief causing danger to life. He has since been released.
“According to him, he was looking to use that as a platform to advertise for his company,” said Grant.
The stunt brings to mind the 2009 animated movie “Up” in which an elderly widower ties thousands of balloons to his home and takes off on an adventure.
Grant said no one was hurt, but it could have ended up differently.
“Thankfully his parachute functioned properly and of course he wasn’t seriously injured upon landing but there’s still the question of the chair being up in the air,” he said.
“It’s my understanding that those balloons would pop once they get to a certain height and the chair would fall back to the Earth. At this point we have no reports of anybody finding anything or anybody being injured, but it’s a big concern for us and I don’t think it’s something he took into account.”