A Heightened Chance of Death
Despite the Gravity of Their Situation, BASE Jumpers Take the Plunge at West Virginia Event

By Story by Eli Saslow {vbar} Photos by Preston Keres {vbar}
The Washington Post
Sunday, November 4, 2007

FAYETTEVILLE, W.Va.

Heather Loughlin had spent the last few months preparing for the possibility of dying here. Now, she worried instead about pain. The 36-year-old real estate developer from Vermont pressed her chest against the railing of the second-highest bridge in the United States, leaned forward and peered down. Almost 900 feet separated her from the bottom of the New River Gorge, where everything looked like a potential stage for disaster.

Whitewater rushed through the bottom of the chasm, sweeping over rocks and fallen oaks and maples. Boulders -- or, wait a second, were those boats? -- cluttered the shoreline. A canopy of red and yellow leaves obscured Loughlin's view of the designated landing area, a patch of uneven dirt on the west bank of the river. Eight medics waited there with headboards to carry the injured into nearby ambulances.

"Oh my God," Loughlin said, turning away from the bridge. "There's like a thousand ways to get mangled down there."

Loughlin stood about 20th in a line that dead-ended into still, Appalachian mountain air. When she reached the front, Loughlin was supposed to buckle her helmet and jump off the bridge, her life tethered to a rented parachute. It would be her first BASE jump, and she considered it the biggest risk of her life. Veterans of BASE jumping -- an acronym that stands for parachute free falls from buildings, antennae, spans or earth -- call their sport the most dangerous in the world, with only 1,200 experienced jumpers and at least 115 fatalities.

BASE jumping is illegal in parts of the world and across the East Coast -- except for here, six hours each year. For one Saturday each October, West Virginia lifts its laws to host Bridge Day, a festival that draws about 400 jumpers and 165,000 spectators to a rural stretch of highway in the southern part of the state. Last year on Bridge Day, one of BASE jumping's pioneers died when his parachute deployed too close to the ground. After a 27-minute delay, the next jumper leapt off the platform.

Loughlin had taken vacation days from her job and driven 14 hours through the night because she believed BASE jumping's risks intensified its rewards. If her jump went badly, Loughlin would hit the ground in 8.8 seconds while traveling 125 mph. The force of impact would break her ribs, ripping them through her internal organs and killing her instantly. To prepare for such an outcome, Loughlin had spoken with a Vermont lawyer about beneficiaries and living wills.

But Loughlin's best memories often were her most terrifying: skiing alone in the Vermont backcountry, skydiving and riding her motorcycle on wet mountain roads. Like other BASE jumpers who reveled in the implicit danger of their sport, Loughlin had come here to feel petrified. And then to conquer. To jump. And to fly.

As the line diminished and Loughlin inched toward the launch platform, her friend and fellow first-time jumper, Rob Schicker, pulled out a small, black video camera and zoomed in on Loughlin's face.

"Okay," Schicker said. "Time for some last words. Heather, you ready to do this?"

"Not really," she said. "And anybody who tells you they're ready is lying."

Loughlin looked away from the camera and signaled for Schicker to turn it off. She tightened the straps on her helmet and smoothed the wrinkles from the parachute clasped in her right hand. Just before Loughlin climbed the stairs onto the jumping platform, she turned one last time to look over the ledge of the bridge.

"This is crazy," she said. "I'm not really sure I can do this."

* * *

From the moment they checked into their Holiday Inn near Fayetteville, W.Va., on Oct. 18, Loughlin and her four friends from Vermont were bombarded with reasons to pack their gear, turn around and drive home. To get to the front counter of their hotel, they zigzagged around other jumpers who drank beer and watched videos of BASE jumping bloopers. Two large televisions in the hotel lobby showed people in flight, yanked like rag dolls at the end of their parachutes. Some smacked into walls or buildings. Others struggled to open their parachutes in midair or snapped bones while landing.

Loughlin and her friends set down their bags and walked into a conference room for BASE jumper registration, where they posed for the head shots on their jumper ID cards. They signed a series of waivers, scribbling their initials next to 26 legal statements. When Loughlin finished, a Bridge Day employee ushered her into a corner of the room and asked her to stand in front of a video camera.

The employee told Loughlin to lean against a whitewashed brick wall and read from the gigantic legal form posted behind the camera. First, Loughlin stated her name and her desire to jump at Bridge Day. As she continued to read, her voice stalled. Loughlin had yet to tell any of her family members about her plan to jump because she didn't want to worry them. Now, she wondered if that was a mistake. What if her parents somehow found out like this, by watching Loughlin read her own death sentence in a posthumous, grainy video?

"I know that BASE jumping is an extreme sport, which involves a high risk of injury or death," Loughlin read, trying to project for the camera. "I agree that this release will apply even if my injury or death is caused by negligence, gross negligence, recklessness or the willful and wanton conduct of Vertical Visions or anyone associated with the Bridge Day event."

In the past year, Loughlin had made more than 100 sky dives -- the minimum required for a first-time BASE jumper to participate at Bridge Day. She had leapt out of Cessnas, jets and helicopters, but those experiences hardly compared to what she planned to try here. BASE jumping and sky diving, often confused in the public consciousness, actually differ by what some sky divers refer to as the line between sanity and insanity. John Hawley, 64, had completed more than 2,000 sky dives before he decided to try a BASE jump at Bridge Day this year. When he told sky-diving friends about his plan, some called him suicidal. "They said one BASE jump is more dangerous than 2,000 sky dives," Hawley said.

Sky divers jump with two parachutes in case one of them malfunctions, and usually they have several minutes in the air to establish a safe body position for free fall. BASE jumpers use only one parachute. As for midair corrections and adjustments? Loughlin's research on the Internet had dead-ended into a simple conclusion.

"By the time I even know something is going wrong," she said, "I'll basically be hitting the ground."

Loughlin had decided to make her first jump at Bridge Day because of its reputation as the relatively safe gateway to an addictive sport. She could make a legal jump into the New River Gorge with medics and rescue boats waiting nearby. Then, if she liked it, she could follow the progression of most BASE jumpers: on to illegal jumps -- off landmarks such as the Eiffel Tower and high-rise hotels of New York City -- executed in darkness to avoid capture.

For clearance to participate at Bridge Day, Loughlin and about 75 other first-time jumpers were required to complete an introductory course the day before. Loughlin, eyes still bloodshot from the long drive, took a seat in the front row of a basement room in the Holiday Inn at 8 a.m. The chairs around her filled mostly with men, some heavily tattooed, ranging in age from their late teens to their early 60s.

Tom Aiello wheeled a big-screen television to the front of the room and distributed two handouts. Aiello had flown in from his BASE jumping academy in Twin Falls, Idaho, to teach this class. His hair was tousled, and he wore a wrinkled T-shirt. Ten years and 50 pounds ago, he had been an avid rock climber. Then he watched two people free-fall down a cliff he was climbing and decided to switch sports. At the height of his own jumping career, Aiello had made more than 500 jumps in a 30-month span, enduring 12 surgeries after a botched jump in September 2000. He believed he had two responsibilities as a BASE jumping instructor: to warn students about the dangers of the sport, and then to teach them how to survive.

"I'm here to tell you that BASE jumping is the most dangerous thing you will ever do in your life," Aiello told the class. "I personally have seen seven of my friends die doing this. I've known at least 15 other people who died while they were BASE jumping. Right now, a BASE jumper dies somewhere in the world about once every three weeks.

"Why is it the most dangerous activity there is? Because we take what is essentially a tent, throw it in the air and expect it to work every time. That's not going to happen.

"So, what happens if you die at Bridge Day? Well, obviously, that sucks for you. But also . . ."

Aiello's cellphone rang, and he walked out of the room to take the call. The students sat still, stunned into silence. Loughlin leaned forward in the center of the front row, turned to a friend sitting next to her and widened her eyes into an expressive, this-teacher-is-intense look. Then Aiello walked back into the room.

"Sorry about that," he said. "So, anyway, if you die at Bridge Day, you're going to have thousands of people watching, and you will be responsible for traumatizing them. I was at an event in Colorado four years ago where a guy hit the ground at terminal velocity with 8-year-olds watching. . . . Believe me, that's not a pretty sight.

"If you're going to make a jump tomorrow, this is the kind of stuff you have to take responsibility for. The only way to make a safe BASE jump is to turn around right now and go home. Otherwise, you might die or get hurt. So if you're going to stay here, accept that."

Loughlin fidgeted in her chair, but she stayed seated along with all of her classmates. Satisfied that he had conveyed the risks, Aiello proceeded with the technical aspects of his lecture and played a 40-minute video of previous Bridge Day jumps. Loughlin watched, captivated, as one jumper after another stepped off the plank and dropped into the wind.

* * *

Storm clouds settled over the New River Gorge before dawn on Saturday, and weather forecasts predicted rain and 20-mph winds. Jason Bell, coordinator of BASE jumping at Bridge Day, steeled himself for disaster. If severe gusts made jumping impossible during the legal, 9 a.m.-to-3 p.m. window, he would have to contend with mutiny.

Jumpers had traveled to Bridge Day from at least 30 states and 10 countries. They had paid a $75 registration fee, rented or purchased expensive equipment and exhausted vacation time. Bell, an avid jumper himself, knew that neither bad weather nor a mandate from the state police would stop them from jumping. At Bridge Day in 1989, a rainstorm flooded the landing area and 50 people elected to jump anyway. They landed on highways, railroad tracks and trees.

"Bad weather could make this a safety catastrophe," Bell said. "And that's stupid, because it doesn't have to be that way. We've been backed into a corner here with our six little hours."

Bell had spent the last five years pushing state and local lawmakers to open the bridge for year-round jumping, or to at least extend Bridge Day to a three-day event. Three jumpers have died since the inaugural Bridge Day in 1980. The annual festival already generates more than $1 million in six hours, Bell said, so why not triple that economic boost over three days? Jumpers could pay West Virginia for the right to launch from the scaffolding underneath the bridge. They would jump without disturbing traffic or distracting drivers. Then they would land on the shore of the river, pack up their parachutes and go home. "We're BASE jumpers," Bell said. "We only harm ourselves."

Bell and other advocates have so far failed in their push for legal BASE jumping because they've been unable to amend the sport's reputation as radical and hazardous. In 1999, 58-year-old Jan Davis made a daytime jump at Yosemite National Park in front of 150 people, a stunt designed to protest the National Park Service's ban on BASE jumping by proving it could be done safely. She wore a black-and-white-striped prison suit and borrowed an unfamiliar parachute that she assumed would be confiscated after the jump. It failed to deploy, and Davis fell more than 3,000 feet to her death.

At least one or two illegal jumps are made each week from the New River Gorge Bridge, said Bell, a West Virginian who once landed an illegal jump himself, only to be chased through the woods by park rangers. This year, a jumper hurled himself off a nearby bridge on the Friday before Bridge Day, broke his leg and spent the night at a nearby hospital.

"We can't keep looking stupid," Bell said. "We need Bridge Day to go off without a hitch if we want to grow the sport."

Bell arrived at the bridge early Saturday morning to find the clouds dissipating and the wind stilled. Two hundred vendors set up stands along a barricaded portion of Route 19 and sold everything from funnel cakes to hunting gear. The sun came out, and thousands of spectators crammed onto the bridge. They fought for positions along the railing so they could lean over and watch each jumper plummet. A 10-foot-high platform and a yellow diving board sat side-by-side at the center of the bridge, intimidating even the most experienced jumpers.

As 9 a.m. approached, Loughlin found a spot along the rail and turned to face the platform. Stephen Boyle, the first jumper of Bridge Day 2007, counted down the final 10 seconds and then dropped into the air. Loughlin gasped as she watched him fall.

"Pull the chute!" she said. "Pull. Pull. Pull. Come on!"

Loughlin squeezed the railing with both hands and closed her eyes. She only opened them again a few seconds later, when she heard the pop of Boyel's parachute releasing safely 400 feet below.

* * *

By 10:55 a.m., Loughlin had ascended the stairs to the top of the jumping platform. More than 300 people already had jumped, and now she stood third in line. Her throat felt dry. Could she please have a sip of water? Didn't anybody have water? Loughlin tilted her head skyward, surveyed the gathered crowd, inhaled and stepped toward the front of the platform. A hand reached out to stop her.

Injury delay at the landing area. Four-minute break.

Loughlin paced the 16-foot-long platform and let her mind wander. What if she accidentally flipped upside down after she jumped and her parachute tangled around her legs? What if the rental company had packed faulty gear? Or what if Loughlin couldn't direct the unfamiliar parachute to the landing area?

She heard her name announced over a loudspeaker -- Here's Heather, a first-time jumper!-- and two men ushered her back to the edge of the launch platform. As she looked down, Loughlin decided she would count to three in the air before she opened her parachute.

Two birds flew beneath her feet as Loughlin leveled her shoulders and tipped her head skyward. She rushed through a silent, last-second prayer, bent her knees and hopped forward, lifting both feet at the same time. She fixed her eyes on the landing area as she started to fall.

One second.

Alone in the air, Loughlin was struck by the quietude. During her jumps out of airplanes, Loughlin always had dropped into a howling wind that pushed her sideways. This time, she tried to cut through the stillness with a yell, but no noise came out of her mouth.

Two seconds.

Loughlin heard the wind whistle across her red fleece sweater as she picked up speed. The ground r ushed toward her. She could see individual people watching her now, spectators sitting on the shore and jumpers repacking their gear. A part of Loughlin envied them, and she wondered: How long until I touch solid ground again?

Three seconds. She released the parachute from her right hand, and the wind snatched it open. The straps around Loughlin's legs, shoulders and chest contracted, and she slowed to about 15 mph. The large parachute -- twice the size of what she usually used for sky dives -- floated toward the center of the river. Loughlin decided not to make a hard turn for the landing area, where the slightest inaccuracy would send her barreling toward trees. Instead, she steered straight ahead and dropped into the river.

A boat pulled up to Loughlin, and she high-fived her rescuers as they pulled her aboard. She beamed and waved at other jumpers falling above her, even if they were strangers. Loughlin was soaked in cold water, but she hardly noticed. She felt numb with adrenaline. As the boat turned to deposit her on shore, Loughlin looked back up at the bridge and wondered: How long until I jump again?