A drunk guy in the midst of a multi-day bender became the first known person to successfully swim across the Hoover Dam reservoir without getting sucked under by the dam’s turbines and killed, the Daily Post reports.
The 28-year-old man from the UK, Arron Hughes, traveled to Vegas for a bachelor party last August. During the vacation, he and his buddies somehow wound up on the Colorado River, next to the Hoover Dam.
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“It was around 45-50 degrees outside [over 100 degrees Fahrenheit] and we were on a stag do in Vegas,” Hughes explained to the Post. “We were all just standing there and I thought, Fuck it, I’m going for a swim. I got to the bottom and thought, I can make that. You go to Vegas to have fun, don’t you? We made the Hangover movie look tame.”
The fact that the dam’s turbines are brutally strong and can easily suck a human under the surface and kill them didn’t really seem to faze Hughes. According to the Post, he had already had a few drinks that day after partying for 37 hours straight and was determined on going for a swim.
“I literally just turned to the lads, said ‘I’m off,’ and they were all cheering me on and I swam across. It’s a hell of a sight to see the dam from underneath.”
According to the Guardian, nine of the ten dam turbines happened to be turned off when Hughes hopped in the river, so their pull wasn’t as strong as usual—but Hughes could still feel it as he swam. “I went close to the dam first and I could feel it sucking me in,” he said. “I thought, I’ve got to get out of here quick.”
He didn’t really get out of there quick, though—Hughes successfully swam to the other side of the river in thirty minutes, then jumped back in and swam back. Police were waiting for him when he climbed out of the water and arrested him, since it’s illegal to swim in the dam’s spillways, what with the terrible dangers and all. He was fined $330 and released.
“They were like, ‘Nobody has ever done this before,’ so in the end I just got a fine,” Hughes said.
“I don’t have any regrets,” he later told BBC News. “I even have a tattoo saying ‘no regrets.’ That’s the type of person I am.”
