Evel Knievel has passed at 69!

CNN reports:

CLEARWATER, Fla. (AP) -- Evel Knievel, the hard-living motorcycle daredevil whose exploits made him an international icon in the 1970s, died Friday. He was 69.

Knievel's death was confirmed by his granddaughter, Krysten Knievel. He had been in failing health for years, suffering from diabetes and idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, an incurable condition that scarred his lungs.

Cause of death, per the family, is liver failure. Evel had received a liver transplant in '99 while fighting off Hepatitis C, most likely contracted through his many hospital visits during his career as a daredevil.

I remember Evel well, as a kid. We jumped our bikes pretending to be the master. I remember hovering around an old AM radio at a neighbor's house listening to his failed attempt to jump Snake River Canyon.


How he survived his many thrills and spills is beyond me. Especially the crash and burn during his attempt to jump the fountains at Ceasar's Palace.
More YouTube here.

In the end, it was his chosen daredevil lifestyle that caught up to him.

Flash