VEGAS MYTHS BUSTED: Evel Knievel Nearly Died Attempting to Jump Caesars Palace Fountain

• Gambling
• 16 June 2025

On December 31, 1967, Evel Knievel tried to leap his motorcycle 141 feet over the Caesars Palace fountain, but he only reached 140 feet. Rather than landing directly on the ramp, his rear tire struck its edge. This unfortunate landing sent his body into a flip over the handlebars, followed by a 60-yard bouncing tumble across the Dunes parking lot asphalt. 

“He was unconscious for a month afterward,” the New York Times wrote in Knievel’s 2007 obituary.

The official newspaper did not report on the initial event since Knievel had not become a celebrity at that time. Actually, it was his tale of a near-fatal incident and his determination to continue jumping that contributed to his transformation. 

“You’re an incredible man,” Johnny Carson told him during his first of three appearances on “The Tonight Show.”

However, his account of the near-death experience was complete nonsense. 

Indeed, Knievel sustained severe injuries. He fractured bones in his hip, pelvis, a femur, one wrist, and both ankles. He also experienced a concussion. 

However, he remained conscious throughout and was never in any true peril. He was not even allowed into the ICU. 

“He told that story but he wasn’t in a coma,” Knievel’s wife, Linda, admitted in the 2015 documentary “Being Evel.” One of the daredevil’s childhood friends added: “He had the press come in there and played it up — ‘Oh, I’m about to die, don’t know if I’m gonna make it.’

“Well, this was Knievel,” the friend said. “This is what he did. He played it up right to the nth.”

Evel Knievel’s body acted like a rag doll tossed from a speeding car. (Image: Gravitas Ventures)

Castle of Deception 

Recently, it was revealed that Caesars Palace founder Jay Sarno might have been involved in deceiving reporters — or at least attempted to claim credit for such an act. This is attributable to a talk delivered by Sarno’s son at the fourth annual Duck Duck Shed architecture festival last month. 

“My dad said, ‘Moron Blows Jump!’ is not a good headline,’” Sarno Jr. told the audience, as reported by the Las Vegas Review-Journal. “But, ‘Man Almost Dies After Jump!’ looks a lot better.”

Sarno Jr. was 9 when his father tracked Knievel’s ambulance to Southern Nevada Memorial Hospital (now known as University Medical Center). 

“We were scared and disoriented, I was crying, and I said, ‘Is Mr. Knievel going to die?’” Sarno Jr. recalled to the audience. “My dad said, ‘No, no, he might walk with a limp. He’s going to be fine.’”

The elder Sarno paused before adding: “’But, that’s not going to be the report you’re going to read in the paper tomorrow.’”

According to Sarno Jr., his father realized that members of the press would slip undercover into the hospital, trying to pry stories from staffers. So he beat them to it.

Sarno, who was also known for founding Circus Circus, gave a $100 bill to every hospital food server and janitor willing to take it, according to his son, instructing them to report, when asked, that Evel was “just barely hanging on.” (Sarno knew not to bribe any medical personnel because they were under oath and wouldn’t talk to the media anyway.)

“All these false stories got reported the next day,” Sarno Jr. said. “And what happens is, anybody who writes a book about history, they look for microfilm records of the newspaper.

“Once you anchor some (BS) like that, it never goes away.”

After Caesars Palace, Evel attempted to complete at least 65 more jumps — including his famously failed 1974 attempt to rocket over the Snake River Canyon — before calling it a career in 1980. He died on Nov. 30, 2007, of pulmonary disease in Clearwater, Fla. He was 69.