People

By Guy D. Garcia

"It was like the best roller-coaster ride you had when you were a ten-year- old." So says Steven Trotter, 22, of his 176-ft. plunge over Niagara Falls last week. Lying inside two pickle barrels ringed with giant inflated inner tubes and layers of fiber glass, the part-time bartender from Barrington, R.I., is the seventh known person to go over the falls and survive. Trotter, who carried a two-way radio and two oxygen tanks in the event he ran into trouble at the bottom of the falls, says he took the plunge "to get recognition as a stunt man." As far as the Canadian authorities are concerned, he has achieved that goal. He is scheduled to appear this week before an Ontario court, where he can be fined as much as $500 for performing an illegal stunt.