A weekend BASE jumping accident in a Utah canyon killed two people, one of them a daredevil athlete best known for performing onstage with Madonna at the 2012 Super Bowl, authorities said.<\/p>\n
The sheriff\u2019s office in Grand County, Utah, confirmed one of the dead was Andy Lewis, an extreme athlete known for feats in BASE jumping<\/a>, a dangerous sport that involves parachuting to the ground after jumping from a tall fixed object such as a building, a bridge or a desert cliff overlooking a deep canyon.<\/p>\n The victims had been conducting a tandem jump in which two people are harnessed together, according to a social media post by Aerial Arts Moab, an acrobatics company that described Lewis as \u201cco-owner and best friend.\u201d<\/p>\n Lewis also owned BASE Jump Moab, a business that offered tandem jumps to inexperienced customers who would be harnessed to a guide wearing the parachute. Promotional videos on the company\u2019s website show pairs of people stepping off the edges of towering cliffs and briefly plummeting before their parachutes open.<\/p>\n In BASE jumping circles, Lewis had a huge following and a reputation for pushing the envelope \u2014 leaping into tighter spaces or deploying his parachute later than his peers would dare, said John McEvoy, a BASE jumping instructor in Twin Falls, Idaho, who has jumped with Lewis.<\/p>\n \u201cHe had an incredible level of athleticism and skill that was developed over years of practice,\u201d McEvoy said. \u201cBut then he would take an incredible amount of risk.\u201d<\/p>\n Grand County Sheriff Jamison Wiggins confirmed the other person who was killed was Danny Joe Kregle, a 68-year-old father and grandfather who was described by a family member as an accomplished businessman.<\/p>\n \u201cDanny had a wonderful sense of humor and was always looking for ways to make people laugh,\u201d relative Sydney Laverty told The Times-Independent<\/a>. \u201cOne of his greatest joys was performing magic tricks alongside his granddaughter.\u201d<\/p>\n Lewis\u2019 other sport made him an overnight celebrity, thanks to Madonna <\/p>\n Lewis was also a prominent figure in the niche sports of slacklining and tricklining, which combine elements of high-wire walking with aerial acrobatics \u2014 sometimes at perilous heights. <\/p>\n He went from obscure athlete to overnight celebrity when he appeared onstage in Madonna\u2019s 2012 Super Bowl halftime show. Dressed in a Roman toga, Lewis bounced and executed tricks on his inch-wide line like it was a trampoline while Madonna sang behind him.<\/p>\n \u201cMy phone actually rang itself to death three days in a row,\u201d Lewis said soon afterward in an appearance on Conan O\u2019Brien\u2019s late night show.<\/p>\n Emergency responders were dispatched Sunday to a report of people injured in a BASE jumping attempt at Mineral Bottom, a remote desert area near the Utah-Colorado line, according to the sheriff\u2019s office.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \n Sign up for Morning Wire: BASE jumping is far more dangerous than skydiving<\/p>\n Though there\u2019s no official tally of BASE jumping deaths, a list compiled by the website BASEaddict.com<\/a> shows 540 total fatalities worldwide since 1981 \u2014 including 30 people killed last year. Prominent deaths include BASE jumper Dean Potter<\/a> and his climbing partner, Graham Hunt, who were killed in 2015 while attempting a wingsuit flight in California\u2019s Yosemite National Park.<\/p>\n
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