Idiot stag-do Brit reveals why he swam across the Hoover Dam while pals cheered
In the middle of a 37-hour booze bender Arron paddled his way into the history books all because he wanted to cool off in the water
A STAG-DO Brit who cheated death as the first person to swim across the US’s Hoover Dam reservoir has revealed he carried out the dangerous stunt because he was hot.
Arron Hughes went in to the water on a visit to the 725ft-high structure and said he and his pals made the Hangover “look tame”.
Arron, 28, explained: “It was around 45-50 degrees outside and we were on a stag do in Vegas. You go to Vegas to have fun don’t you? We made The Hangover movie look tame!
“It was so hot that as soon as we arrived I jumped in. Then I just thought, ‘Why not keep going?’
“I was sucked towards the wall and had to swim hard. At the other side I was exhausted. Then I heard police shout.”
He escaped being dragged under during his 30-minute swim only because nine of its ten hydroelectric turbines were off – no
The Hoover Dam, on the border of Arizona and Nevada, provides water and electricity for Las Vegas — but 275 people have died there in a decade.
But in the middle of a 37-hour booze bender, superhuman Arron, who fittingly has a Superman tattoo on his arm, paddled his way into the history books.
Forklift driver Arron, of Ruthin, North Wales, was handcuffed and fined £250.
The feat took him from Nevada to Arizona and took around half an hour.
Arron said: “I hadn’t planned swimming across and hadn’t told any of my mates that I was going to do it but it was so hot that as soon as we arrived at the top of the dam I climbed down the rocks and jumped in.
“Then I just thought: ‘Why not keep going?’
“I would say I was swimming about 50 to 100 metres from the wall of the dam and at one point I felt myself getting sucked towards it and had to swim away quite hard.
“When I got to the other side I was exhausted and had to sit down on the rocks. That was when I heard the police shouting ‘Oi, come here lad.’
“I was handcuffed and taken back to their office at the dam.”
Cops watched in horror as Arron crossed the reservoir behind the iconic American structure – hailing him “the luckiest man alive”.
He added: “They said they couldn’t believe it because I was the only person who had made it across alive.
“They said they weren’t going to send me to jail because I was the only person who had ever achieved it but they gave me a fine which I had to pay.”
“People say it’s like something out of The Hangover.”
Hollywood’s 2009 hit comedy The Hangover follows four men and their increasingly wild antics during a stag do in Vegas.
Cops scribbled his offence down on a ticket as: “Jumping, diving, swimming from dam’s spillways or other structures.”
Arron, who was on the four-day trip last month, added: “My mates drove round from the other side and picked me up later.”
He said his dad thinks his stunt was funny but his mum was less impressed.
He added the people from the Guiness Book of World Records had got in touch but for it to count as a record they would require him to do it again with an official adjudicator – something he is not keen to do.
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