Bobby Leach was the second person to brave Niagara Falls and live. He performed his death-defying stunt when he was forty-nine years old sealed in a barrel.
Fifteen years later he met his end in a way least expected, as the following news release records: “Bobby Leach, who achieved fame when he went over Niagara Falls in a barrel, died today of injuries received in slipping on an orange peel. Leach, who made the perilous Falls journey without dying, broke his leg when he slipped on the orange peel. Complications set in following an amputation, causing death.”
The case of Bobby Leach is only one of thousands reported, with many more untold. An officer, hero of many battles, escapes the sword, only to die later from an infected pin. A sea captain, who had weathered many a storm and always reached port safely, was drowned in his bathtub at home.
Ahab, the king of Israel who disguised himself in a battle with the Syrians, was brought down by a bow and arrow-shot “at a venture”—by an unknown soldier (1 Kings 22). Israel’s King Abimelech’s head was crushed when a certain woman cast a piece of a millstone upon him (Judg. 9:53).
The safety or loss of our life often seems (and is treated by some) as a gamble. But if we could see as God sees, we would be compelled to say, “There is but a step between me and death” (1 Sam. 20:3). The moral is plain: Be prepared! Your time may be short―much shorter than you dream or think!