Ill-fitting harnesses, poor safety checks or plain old rotten luck can lead to severe mishaps that put lives at risk. Here, MailOnline looks at the close shaves people have had with ziplines.

From drunken speeches to frozen canaries and rampaging roosters at inaugural balls, the day has a fine history of mishaps ... an exhibit on early American farm life, crashed the party and pestered ...

I went to visit a farm one day, I saw a COW across the way, And what do you think I heard it say? MOO, MOO, MOO! MOO, MOO, MOO! I went to visit a farm one day, I saw a sheep across the way ...