A BASE jumping accident in a Utah canyon over the weekend killed two people, authorities said, including one of them a fearless athlete best known for performing on stage with Madonna at the 2012 Super Bowl.
The Grand County Sheriff’s Office in Utah confirmed that one of the deceased was Andy Lewis, an extreme athlete known for his BASE jumpingSkydiving is a dangerous sport that involves parachuting from a tall, fixed object, such as a building, a bridge, or a desert cliff overlooking a deep canyon, before descending to the ground.
Lewis was also a prominent figure in niche sports such as webbing and trick sliding, which combine elements of high-wire walking and aerial acrobatics — sometimes at dangerous heights.
Lewis went from unknown athlete to overnight celebrity when he appeared on stage at Madonna’s 2012 Super Bowl halftime show. Wearing a Roman robe, Lewis bounced and performed tricks on his inch-wide rope, like a trampoline, while Madonna sang behind him.
“My phone was literally ringing off the hook for three days straight,” Lewis said shortly afterwards on Conan O’Brien’s late night show.
Emergency crews responded Sunday to reports of injuries from a BASE jumping incident in Mineral Bottom, a remote desert area near the Utah and Colorado state lines, according to the Sheriff’s Office. Lewis and an unidentified 50-year-old man died at the scene, the Sheriff’s Office said in a news release.
Sheriff’s Lt. Al Simbaruk confirmed to The Associated Press that the deceased was Lewis, an extreme athlete. He said he had no further details about the fatal crash.
While there is no official count of BASE jumping fatalities, this website has compiled a list BASEaddict.com It shows a total of 540 deaths worldwide since 1981, including 30 last year. Notable fatalities include BASE jumping Dean Porter and his climbing partner Graham Hunt died in 2015 while trying to wingsuit in Yosemite National Park, California.
One study focused on BASE jumping in NorwayA 2007 study published in a medical journal estimated that BASE jumping carries five to eight times the risk of injury or death than skydiving.
Lewis owns BASE Jump Moab, which offers tandem skydiving excursions to inexperienced customers who are strapped to a parachute-wearing guide.
At the same time, Lewis openly acknowledged the dangers inherent in the sport.
“It’s weird to think about how many people died because it was so normal,” Lewis told documentary filmmaker Ira Wernick in an interview published last year.
No one immediately responded to phone calls, text messages and Facebook messages Monday about BASE Jumping in Moab.
From 2008 to 2011, Lewis won four consecutive flat belt surfing world titles. In 2011, Lewis set a Guinness World Record for flat surfing by swinging his feet from side to side in a rocking motion that mimicked surfing while maintaining his balance above China’s Diao Shui Lou Falls.
In 2014, he was more than 4,000 feet above the Nevada desert, walking along a webbing suspended between two hot air balloons.
Bynum reported from Savannah, Georgia.
This article was generated from automated news agency feeds without modifications to the text.
