The time a base jumper parachuted off the St. Louis Arch

ST. LOUIS - In the early 1990s, one New Orleans man set out quests to base jump on some of the highest monuments across the country from the World Trade Center, the Superdome in New Orleans, and one familiar place to St. Louisans: The Gateway Arch.

John Vincent became well known for his daring adventures, which often led to performing extreme stunts, or base jumping.

On Sept. 14, 1992, 25-year-old Vincent used suction cups to climb to the top of the 630-foot-tall St. Louis monument.

It took him around two and a half hours to go all the way up the north leg of the Arch, he told MTV Sports. He took videos and photos of himself once he successfully made his way atop, but had to ultimately lose his possession of them in a court case that followed.

Once he reached the top at around 7 a.m., he parachuted down to the Gateway Arch National Park--and it was all captured on video.

"This is a first for us. We've seen babies born on the Martin Luther King Bridge and fatal accidents that had traffic tied up for miles around, but this is the first time we've seen anything like this," Dave Walters with the Computraffic staff told the Associated Press at the time of the incident.

Police were immediately after Vincent, along with two others who were there to photograph and videotape the event--Robert Weitzel and Ron Carroll, whom Vincent had met the day prior at an apartment complex pool. He had managed to escape, but police captured Weitzel and Carroll.

"Come on, man, the cops are right behind us," a running Carroll said when Vincent touched the ground.

According to our archive video, Carroll and Weitzel were unaware of the extremity of the stunt until they had gotten there. Vincent simply asked him to record him jumping off a building in the city but didn't specify which one.

All three were arrested in connection to the incident. Vincent ended up pleading guilty, and Weitzel took a plea bargain. Both testified against Carroll.

"I would not do it again," Carroll said during the trial. "I really think as far as the money goes that they've spent on this, it's a waste of time for the government to be chasing us down like this."

Vincent was also criticized by Carroll's lawyer for not taking the matter seriously.

"I think (John) feels bad he's testifying against the guy that took his picture. But I think John Vincent cares about John Vincent," he said.

While Vincent was not the first to take the leap from the Arch, he is the only one who survived. In 1980, 33-year-old Kenneth Swyers—deemed a highly skilled parachutist—jumped from a plane onto the top of the Arch, according to an archived St. Louis Post-Dispatch article. The wind carried him to the north leg, where his parachute failed and he fell to his death.

It remains unclear where Vincent is at today.