A married Donemana stunt man has yet to return to earth following a winning “Deadly Leap” attempt at the Donemana Community Sports Day at the weekend. Francie McBurn was attempting to win the “Deadly Leap” competition for the first time having been out-jumped by his cousin Benny for the last 14 years consecutively. Competition rules stipulate that they are to reach the highest point possible for a human as long as they start from terra firma. He best friend and fellow former inmate Jemmy Hagan told us:

“Francie was determined to win it this year. He developed some kind of turbo-injection shoes that just shot him straight up into the air. I knew he hadn’t done a dry run of it as he thought there’d only be enough power for one shot at it. At first we cheered and yahoo-ed as he shot straight up into the sky. You could see the smile on his face. Then you just couldn’t see him at all. It has been three days now so we are beginning to get slightly alarmed. He definitely won though.”

McBurn’s shoes

His wife Kitty and three children still believe he’ll return before the week is out. Kitty, who has the “Deadly Leap” trophy sitting proudly on the mantlepiece for his return, was relatively calm about the prospect of him still being alive.

“Ach yiz are making a big deal of nothing. OK, I understand that if he kept going at that rate he’d be well into our stratosphere and possibly past the moon right now and I am aware of the whole lack of oxygen thing. But my Francie is a hardy lad and could drink anyone under the table. He’ll be here as he has to collect the bru on Friday. Young Francie Jnr does ask if ‘Daddy is down yet’ a lot and that can be a bit annoying. Even if he doesn’t return, he has the deadliest leap in Donemana and you can tell that to Benny McBurn,” she told us, laughing manically.

Kitty McBurn vehemently denied the accusations that this was a different sort of disappearing stunt as Francie is under investigation for benefit fraud.