His job description is “Human Cannonball.” And for 23 years it appears to have worked for Chachi “Rocketman” Valencia. Even his wife, Robin Valencia, is in the work of human cannonball.
However, on Sunday at the Riverside County Fair & National Dating Festival, Rocketman missed his target, allowing us to see why being Daredevil wasn’t for the faint-hearted person.
The performer is recovering from his injury after starting about 65 feet into the air during his performance at the Indio Festival.
Valencia began his performance around 2:30pm, fair officials said via Instagram. He routinely pumps his audience with 20-minute speeches before climbing the cannon, according to his website.
Valencia climbed the cannon and fired him at a height of about 65 feet at a speed of 55 mph at a distance of 165 feet. According to his website, the net is about 20 feet away from the ground. But instead of giving the crowd a final heartfelt salute, Valencia fell to the ground.
He was rushed to a nearby hospital around 3pm, an impartial official said. The Riverside County Sheriff’s Office reported Valencia suffered a life-threatening injury Sunday. Officials at Riverside County Fair said Valencia was released from the hospital later that night.
Valencia says on his website he has over 20 years of experience as a human cannonball. He performed at the closing ceremony of the 2012 London Olympics and the 2014 Rio de Janeiro Carnival Competition, becoming the first to launch in 40 minutes via six giant movement floats.
Human cannonballs are said to be small and selected groups. And they are not strangers of catastrophe. After the death of one performer in 2011, Daredevil told an online outlet in the UK that he was independent of the skills that require performers to “understand physics, mathematics and engineering” and “you’re not scared of anything.”
