CHAGRIN FALLS, OHIO Diving human fireball plans to rekindle stunt

Ted Batchelor said the officers who arrested him joined in on the act.
CHAGRIN FALLS, Ohio (AP) -- Thirty years ago, inspired by a dream and egged on by high school pals, Ted Batchelor soaked his heavy denim clothes and a corduroy cape in lighter fluid, lighted himself on fire and dove 25 feet from the top of Chagrin Falls into a river.
He kept up the stunt for 10 years -- usually getting arrested after he popped to the water's surface.
Batchelor, now 47 and a professional stuntman, wants to revive the tradition May 20, and hopes this time to avoid a jail cell. He may even get the village's blessing.
In the 1970s and '80s, crowds would gather for the downtown event in this Cleveland suburb, cheering and photographing the diving human fireball and booing as police handcuffed him and hauled him to jail.
Batchelor said the friendly officers became part of the act.
"They'd ask me, 'You want the handcuffs on or not?' I'd say, 'Yeah, gimme the handcuffs. It looks good,"' he said. "Another time, a cop who was arresting me said, 'That was a better dive than last year's."'
Ending a run
Usually, friends bailed him out by midnight so he could hit a party at a downtown bar. But he spent four days in jail in 1984 and the next year was fined $1,000 and put on two years' probation, with a threat of a 90-day jail sentence for another violation.
"That's when I stopped," he said.
Batchelor tried to get hired as a Hollywood stuntman after graduating from Bowling Green State University, but after two years returned to northeast Ohio to paint houses and now manages a Cleveland painting company.
He still sets himself on fire, and gets paid to do it -- mainly for local events and television commercials. He coats himself in a protective gel rather than using fire-retardant clothing. He sometimes gets burned.
Two years ago, he landed in the Guinness Book of Records for the longest full-body burn without oxygen. He was engulfed in fire for two minutes and 38 seconds at a Portage County Park before jumping into a lake.
How it started
But it all started in Chagrin Falls, under the Main Street bridge. One night when he was 17, Batchelor dreamed he jumped off the falls while on fire. Friends bet him he couldn't really do it, and -- needing money for the prom -- he took them up, then got hooked on the rush.
For his plans to rekindle the stunt, Batchelor is gaining support from Village Council officials. Council President Dwight Milko has said he likes the idea of using the dive to promote the village.
If he gets the go-ahead and a free pass from police, Batchelor still plans to build up the drama, casting a dramatic pose before assistants coat him in fuel and light him.
"I'm going to run back and forth across the top of the falls for about 30 seconds to a minute," he said. "Then I'll do a swan dive."
Even if he doesn't get permission from the village, the show must go on, Batchelor said. "And then I'll go to jail."