Dwarfed by a huge waterfall - this is the moment extreme sportsman Ben Stookesberry was dramatically dragged to safety after plunging 210ft over the edge. Adrenalin junkie Ben took on the giant drop during a pioneering trip down the remote Rio Alceseca in Mexico. He and fellow canoeists made the first ever entire 22-kilometre descent of the river deep in the rugged Sierra Madre Oriental mountains. And from the look of these pictures it seems pretty clear why kayakers have avoided it until now. As well as the whitewater they also had to contend with tropical bugs and jungle foot-rot.
This is just one of the pictures snapped by professional photographer Luke Gilman. He has been around the world to take the best pictures of kayakers in action.
Here Jesse Coombs paddles off of the 70-foot-tall Lower Mesa Falls on the Henry's Fork River, US
In other shots he captured another death-defying paddler Pat Keller as he plunged 120ft from La Paz Waterfall in Costa Rica. Amazingly he escaped from the fall with just a broken hand. Luke said: "I want to show the power of water and how inconsequential the kayaker is compared to the power of the water." He added: "Every time a kayaker goes over a waterfall of more than 40 feet there is chance for injury and even death."
