Utah canyon BASE jump kills 2, including extreme athlete who performed with Madonna
Two people died in a BASE jumping accident in a Utah canyon over the weekend, including a daredevil athlete known for performing on stage with Madonna at the 2012 Super Bowl, authorities said.
The sheriff’s office in Grand County, Utah, confirmed that one of the dead was extreme athlete Andy Lewis. BASE jumpingIt is a dangerous sport that involves jumping from a high fixed object, such as a building, bridge, or desert cliff overlooking a deep canyon, and then parachuting to the ground.
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Lewis was also a prominent figure in niche sports that combined elements of high rope walking with aerial acrobatics (sometimes at dangerous heights).
Lewis went from unknown athlete to overnight celebrity when he took the stage at Madonna’s 2012 Super Bowl halftime show. Dressed in a Roman toga, Lewis bounced and performed tricks on her inch-wide line like a trampoline as she sang behind Madonna.
“My phone actually rang by itself three days in a row,” Lewis said during an appearance on Conan O’Brien’s late-night show a short time later.
Emergency responders were dispatched Sunday to a report of people injured while attempting BASE jumping in Mineral Bottom, a remote desert area near the Utah-Colorado line, 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.
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Sheriff’s Lt. Al Cymbaluk confirmed to The Associated Press that the deceased was extreme athlete Lewis. He said no further details about the fatal crash were available.
Lewis was the owner of BASE Jump Moab, which offered excursions to inexperienced clients using tandem jumps, in which the client ran for a guide wearing a parachute.
Lewis also openly acknowledged the danger inherent in the sport.
“It’s weird to think about how many people died because it’s a normal thing,” Lewis told documentary filmmaker Ella Warnick in an interview published last year.
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No one immediately responded to phone calls, texts and Facebook messages left at BASE Jump Moab on Monday.
Lewis won four consecutive world titles in competitive slacking from 2008 to 2011. In 2011, Lewis set a Guinness World Record for slackline surfing by swinging his feet from side to side in a rocking motion that mimicked surfing while maintaining his balance over China’s Diaoshuilou waterfall.
In 2014, he walked a slackline suspended between two hot air balloons 4,000 feet (1,200 meters) above the Nevada desert.
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Bynum reported from Savannah, Georgia.
