human
Now there was Billy Batcheller. He was a fine leaper, and could do his two somersaults over four elephants or eight horses with the prettiest lift you ever saw. He could do it easy. But one day--we were showing out west with the Reynolds circus--as he came down the leaping-run he struck the board wrong, somehow, and in the turn he changed his mind; instead of doing a double he did one and a half and shot over the last horse straight for the ground, head first. One second more and he was a dead man; he would have broken his neck sure, but I saw him coming and caught him so with my right arm, took all the skin off under his chin, and left the print of my hand on his breast for weeks. But it saved him. And the queer thing was he never could explain it--none of them ever can; he just changed his mind. So did Ladell, who used to do doubles from high bars down to a pedestal. He made his leap one night, just as usual--it was at Toronto, in 1896, I think--and as he turned he changed his mind, and I forget how he landed, but it killed him all right.
gpt
Did you ever have an experience of this kind yourself?