Yahoo Movies Climber saves BASE jumper dangling from ledge after plunging from 400-foot Utah cliff
A climber came to a BASE jumper’s rescue after he plunged from a 400-foot cliff, hit the wall and dangled from a ledge, rescuers in Utah said.
The 35-year-old jumper from Australia was taking part in an annual festival and BASE jumping fundraising event at Kane Creek Canyon near Moab during Thanksgiving week, Grand County Sheriff’s Search and Rescue said in a Facebook post.
BASE jumping is an extreme sport where athletes jump from a fixed object and free fall before opening a parachute, according to topendsports.com. “BASE stands for building, antennae, span (bridges) and earth,” where the athletes jump from, the website says.
On Nov. 26, the Australian jumped with a parachute from a 400-foot cliff into the canyon, near Abraxas Tower, rescuers said.
As he plunged out of control into the canyon, he struck a wall, causing his parachute to snag on a ledge, rescuers said. He was then left dangling 80 feet from the top of a talus slope, which is formed from large pieces of loose rocks and boulders.
All of this was caught on camera by onlookers who had stopped to watch the BASE jumpers glide into the canyon, KSL-TV reported.
Family captures #BASEjumper in #Moab hitting cliff, then dangling high above the ground after his chute catches on rocks. Grand County SAR had to climb up to rescue him, but they tell me he survived! #utah #ut (Baron Edwards) pic.twitter.com/3pDmbA6eeo
— Lauren Steinbrecher (@LaurenSnews) November 30, 2022
“He just slammed into that thing hard, and then started to fall straight down,” Mitch Edwards told the news outlet. “And he was probably 200-300 feet above the ground when he first hit the cliff.”
A woman who was climbing in the area saw the incident and made her way toward the jumper, rescuers said.
She was able to “secure him to a rope, remove his parachute rigging and rappel with him to the talus,” rescuers said.
When she made her way up the wall, first responders had also reached the area.
Another witness helped belay them, rescuers said. Belaying uses tension on the rope to counterbalances the climber so they don’t fall by holding the rope through a device.
The BASE jumper was then airlifted to a hospital in Grand Junction. He’s in critical condition, rescuers said.
Other BASE jumpers injured
The 35-year-old Australian jumper wasn’t the only one to get injured that week in the Moab area, which is in eastern Utah.
A 39-year-old man also from Australia jumped from The Crown on Nov. 25 into the same canyon, hit a wall and needed to be rescued. He was injured in the jump and taken by ambulance, rescuers said.
Earlier that morning, a 38-year-old man from North Carolina man injured his ankle while ascending a rope to a BASE exit point, rescuers said.
And another jumper was also injured on Thanksgiving after the 47-year-old hit a wall and landed on a talus slope. He was also airlifted to a hospital in Grand Junction.
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