His wife says rearing a new boy is scarier than anything, so she’s smart, and can predict the future - and is smart enough to have hubby do the skywalk in the present - but neither, surely, could have known that he’d almost lose everything because his right leg would cramp up - between tower peaks...on a windy - with gusts whooshing UPWARDS - daredevil Melbourne, Australian day - - - could they?
Did this funambulist/funambulator (for high wire/tight rope walking is called funambulism) cause a Kane Petersen brain cramp? Is that why he took on this trek firstly and got another cramp, a right leg one, secondly? But you know what? What was freaky was how Petersen so calmly lied supine on a wire while slowly, and carefully, shook out the twitches of the offending limb. To have one’s right leg muscles tighten some 300 meters (almost 1,000 feet) high - forcing a total change in cable-wire plans, is incredible.
Who is Kane? He’s a man without a net. Or at least for this meander in the Land Down Under, on a morning (and wouldn’t this freak out people dashing to work) with no safety net in sight.
No worries.
Have to admire his physical ability, once the cramping cleared, to command his left leg to (and this is the ultimate one-leg-stair lift) propel his body vertical, starting from a position where his butt was BELOW the wire - to get his left foot back on the wire, facing forward straight ahead on the wire, then - cat-quick - get his right foot on the wire in front of the left - and after standing...legs wobbling (almost probably as much as his heart was pounding) to then finish off his act.
He was about halfway through the feat, which must have got him a bit upset knowing that getting there, through this test, and getting the last question wrong, would mean certain death - except...we’ll touch upon that certain-death part shortly.
Tough ordeal. Only took him a few minutes, though. To put his bravery into perspective, all told, on the roof, there looked to be only a few folks, including mom and dad, fearless enough to stand on solid, albeit high up, ground.
Now, as high wire deeds go, it doesn’t compare to Jay Cochrane walking 800 feet between the towers (some 300 feet high) of the Flamingo Hilton in Las Vegas - BLINDFOLDED - nor does it compare to the Flying Wallendas, who, through generations, have thrilled watchers with their high wire acts (and chilled watchers, with some horrifying deaths) nor does it boggle the mind like knowing that Jorge Ojeda-Guzman lived 205 days atop a high wire - - - but Kane could not have anticipated his leg cramping up. And, with the exceptions of Wallendas’s dying, they, Cochrane, and Ojeda-Guzman knew what they were getting into.
If wife, Jessica McCrindle, screamed “Eureka!” it would have sounded like a shameless property promotion. Everyone knew Eureka was the site. The Eureka Tower is the tallest residential building anywhere.
For his Eureka excellence-in-balance, his wondrous walk between two peaks on the north-western side of this edifice - - - besides getting a massage for the right leg - would be getting his getting an oh-so thorough free look into his DNA, specifically into his DRD4 gene, which possibly/probably amped his thrill-seeking needs to hit the heights; just like some DNA makes maniacs ride bulls in rodeos or ride logs down mountains...
Where were we?
Oh, yea: some think his high wire act was basically a cakewalk, saying he used a safety harness attached to the wire and that, therefore the biggest risk he took was a possible fall in his prestige, rather than a cannon ball fall to his demise: his act, in other words, could be construed as lying if publicized as death defying.
His sky walking act was to help promote an upcoming movie, out this October, called “The Walk” about Philippe Petit. (Petit had no safety wire walking between the twin towers of New York’s World Trade Center.) Kane’s high-wire walk is, despite the harness, nevertheless unique: most of us can’t get off the field of play with a cramp – but this guy with his leg in spasms, contracting, surely hurting – had the mental presence to keep it together, let the pain subside – and carry on. Talk about from heaven to hell – to heaven again.
Wife and husband met on earth, at a circus.
Why isn’t that surprising?
Specifically, they joined in craziness and hijinks at the National Institute of Circus Arts.
But what is surprising is that the Petersen baby spent a week in intensive care – BEFORE – Dad’s 21-metre walkabout town!
Kids. What do they know?
Hard to say what Australia’s overall take on this. Sure, Petersen set an Australian record in this but remember that that country has record-breaking spiders and snakes in every scary category already.
Hard to say, too, how many, looking at his images on that high wire, thinks he looks a bit like Canada’s hunky Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau.)
Yet Australia did create “The Walk Experience” an illusion giving the impression of walking a tightrope over Melbourne. And Ross and John dug it. Of course, they were working for 3AW Breakfast Live, covering the sky-high stunt...
But 36-year old Kane, a former Ulverstone fellow (therefore a Tasmanian devil??!!) knows this: "I've just lived a dream just then, so it's fantastic".
Good thing he had the harness, and his amazing body-and-brain control prowess, otherwise his son’s life could have been a nightmare; wondering how life with Dad might have been.