Sydney - The fireworks on Sydney Harbour Bridge are a staple of New Year's Eve television broadcasts around the world. The last couple of occasions the cheery scenes of exploding cordite have been backed by frightful images of expatriate motorcycle stuntman Robbie Maddison leaping to great heights.
A year ago Australians were celebrating when Maddison set a new world record with a 98-metre leap in a Las Vegas casino car park.
This week they are still agog over his latest Las Vegas midnight madness: leaping to the top of a 10-storey plywood replica of Paris's Arc de Triomphe and then dropping down the other side to complete the world's highest ever motorcycle jump.
"Robbie's had more than 13 lives and we count each day we have as a blessing," his mother Debbie told The Australian newspaper.
The 27-year-old professional motocross rider is well on the way to a place in the record books for personal injuries. The lad from the seaside resort of Kiama, near Sydney, has sustained a broken neck, broken collar bones, broken legs, broken vertebrae and a torn lower lip. Most of his front teeth have been knocked out and he's had a brain hemorrhage.
And there's the g-force damage to contend with when he hits the take-off ramp at speeds of up to 165 kilometres an hour.
"My eyes were flooded, and my vision was blurred on take-off," the former apprentice electrician told a Last Vegas paper last week. "If I hadn't forced myself through the g-force, I'd have been a goner."
The latest leap ended as quite a few do: in hospital. He had to have 10 stitches after his left hand tore open on impact as he completed the jump.
"To me, although there was blood, after everything I have been through and done to my body in the past with injuries, this was little more than a paper cut," the stoic said.
To the likely disappointment of his mum, and his fiancée Amy Sanders, Maddison is not contemplating retirement.
"I want to take it to a whole other realm and really show everyone out there what's possible on a dirt bike," he said after bringing in 2009 with another record. "I'm ready to live another day and am extremely excited to see what 2009 holds for me.
"The risk level of my jumps was extremely high and although I was confident in my abilities and preparation, I knew there could have been major consequences, but that's what pushing the limits is all about."
