Tik Tok News
Tik Tok stunt star Ryan Bean leaps off bridge into Dallas' Trinity River
A Tik Tok star has done something most in Dallas would never be caught dead doing: jumping into the Trinity River.
Ryan Bean, a native of Utah famous for his stunts, back flips, and daring jumps, took a dive off a bridge in Dallas, landing in the Trinity below. The jump has been documented on Instagram and can be seen here.
He currently has 271,000 followers on Instagram where he posted the video on July 19. It has 28,000 views.
The bridge he jumps from is the former Continental Avenue Bridge, now called the Ronald Kirk Pedestrian Bridge.
Bean's jump-off point is the thick chrome rod inset onto the bridge barricade as a handrail. He takes a running jump and slides onto the rod, a stunt known as a "rail slide" in the skateboarding world, facing out onto the water. He then flips around in air so that his back is to the water, before taking a breathtaking dive.
Bean was dared into the leap by his running buddy and fellow Tik Tok/Instagram star Travis Sims, a professional cliff diver and environmentalist who has been diving for more than 10 years, from performing in high diving shows to jumping epic cliffs.
Founder of The Cliff Cruise, a roving freestyle competition festival that took place in Austin in late-June, Sims posted a video of his leap from the bridge on June 30, saying, "Swamps need love too. Spotted this bridge while zooming on the highway with @_ryan.bean_ so naturally I took the next exit and we checked it out. Turned out being a perfect 60-ish footer but just please don't talk to us about the monster we saw in the water, DON'T wanna think about that thing ever again."
Bean, who grew up in St. George, Utah, has been doing extreme stunts since he was young, some resulting in accidents such as the time in 2018 when he did a backflip into a pool, hit his head, and sank. His mother said that stunts were something he'd always done, from tricks in the living room to flips on the trampoline.
"He’s been doing flips and stuff since he was 8 years old," she said.
"Ryan Bean isn't your ordinary stuntman," says Greatest Highlights, a media site that tracks extreme sports, which has a video showing the high-flying leaps and dives he's taken off bridges, mountaintops, swings, rooftops, and other elevated spots. "Ryan Bean is a teenager from Utah with an appetite to conquer the world of stunts, one cliff jump at a time," they say.
With the Dallas jump, your average viewer would be agog merely at the physical skills Bean displays — balancing on a cable along the side of the bridge, spinning out into a three-point tumble, diving hundreds of feet into the water.
But your Dallas viewer is likely more agog at the fact that Bean is willing to bodily enter the Trinity River, which horrified commenters note could possibly contain alligators, or be too shallow for such a long jump.
"I couldn’t even focus on anything but that dirty ass water," one says.
"Sick flip, but the water you jumped in here in Dallas is sicker," says one.
"Bro took a dip in Dead Body River," says another.
"Congrats you just caught every disease in Dallas," says a third.
"You will need to get on antibiotics after jumping in the Trinity," suggests one reader.
"No ma'am," Bean says politely.
