parachute

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.

The Sheriff’s Office in Grand County, Utah, confirmed one of the dead was Andy Lewis, an extreme athlete known for feats in BASE jumping, 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.

In BASE jumping circles, Lewis had a huge following and a reputation for pushing the envelope — 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.

“He had an incredible level of athleticism and skill that was developed over years of practice,” McEvoy said. “But then he would take an incredible amount of risk.”

Lewis’ other sport made him an overnight celebrity, thanks to Madonna

Lewis was also a prominent figure in the niche sports of slacklining and tricklining, which combine elements of high-wire walking with aerial acrobatics — sometimes at perilous heights.

Lewis went from obscure athlete to overnight celebrity when he appeared onstage in Madonna’s 2012 Super Bowl halftime show. Dressed in a Roman toga, Lewis bounced and executed tricks on his inch-wide line as though it was a trampoline while Madonna sang behind him.

“My phone actually rang itself to death three days in a row,” Lewis said soon afterward in an appearance on Conan O’Brien’s late-night show.

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’s Office. Lewis and an unidentified 50-year-old man died at the scene, the office said in a news release.

Sheriff’s Lt. Al Cymbaluk confirmed to the Associated Press that it was Lewis the extreme athlete who died. He said he had no further details on the fatal accident.

BASE jumping is far more dangerous than skydiving

Though there’s no official tally of BASE jumping deaths, a list compiled by the website BASEaddict.com shows 540 total fatalities worldwide since 1981 — including 30 people killed last year. Prominent deaths include BASE jumper Dean Potter and his climbing partner, Graham Hunt, who were killed in 2015 while attempting a wingsuit flight in Yosemite National Park.

A study focused on BASE jumping in Norway, published in a medical journal in 2007, estimated that BASE jumping carried risks of injury or death five to eight times greater than skydiving.

Lewis openly acknowledged the sport’s inherent danger.

“It’s weird to think about how many people are dead, because it’s like a normal thing,” Lewis told documentary filmmaker Ella Warnick in an interview published last year.

Lewis owned BASE Jump Moab, a business that offered excursions to inexperienced customers using tandem jumps, in which the customer was harnessed to a guide wearing the parachute.

Sheriff’s spokesperson Cymbaluk said he didn’t know whether Lewis and the other man killed were performing a tandem jump.

Tandem BASE jumping carries additional risk because it straps together two people, one of whom generally lacks experience, under a single parachute, McEvoy said. But because they involve novices, they also tend to be the most low-risk, basic types of jumps.

“Within BASE, it’s a very controversial topic,” McEvoy said. “There’s a lot of people who say it’s the stupidest thing in the world and others arguing, `No, we’re giving people the experience of their lives.’”

No one immediately returned phone, text and Facebook messages left Monday for BASE Jump Moab.

Lewis won four straight world championships in competitive slacklining from 2008 through 2011. Lewis set a Guinness World Record for slackline surfing, swaying his feet side to side in a rocking motion that mimics surfing, while keeping his balance above China’s Diaoshuilou waterfall in 2011.

In 2014, he walked a slackline suspended between two hot air balloons more than 4,000 feet above the Nevada desert.

Bynum writes for the Associated Press.

Anyone who has jumped out of a plane with a parachute deserves respect, but to do it 36 times, that’s worthy of a salute.

Saul Pacheco, who turns 88 in November, is sitting in a lawn chair at the Arcadia Invitational with his friends, the starters dressed in red suits who fire pistols to begin races.

That’s when he mentions how he was in the 82nd Airborne Division and jumping out of planes in the 1960s after graduating from Wilmington Banning High and UCLA.

“I was a jump master who became in charge of the parachute troopers,” he said.

Then he talks about becoming a teacher and wanting to return to his alma mater, Banning, which had no openings, so he ends up at rival Carson and coaching the offensive line for Hall of Fame coach Gene Vollnogle for more than two decades. Vollnogle was football coach from 1963 to 1990, winning eight City titles.

Pacheco also became a track starter in 1977. He was already well trained to fire a pistol. It was learning all the rules required in track and field that needed to be mastered.

He apparently did just that, because he’s been at it for 49 years and plans to retire as a track starter this spring. For 25 years, he was a starter for the Arcadia Invitational. Then he became the meet referee to settle any disputes. The respect he has earned can be seen in the way other starters appreciate him for helping them learn the ropes.

He’ll be inducted into the Carson Hall of Fame this fall for his contributions as a coach and athletic director.

His story is pretty amazing. He was one of 13 children. His parents apparently wanted enough siblings to form a football team. His father was a carpenter helping build minesweepers at Terminal Island for the Navy. His mother stayed home and took care of everyone. The first seven kids born were boys. He was No. 5. Imagine the competition for food at dinner time.

“Everbody came in to eat at different times,” Pacheco said. “My mother did a great job having stuff ready.”

But what about 13 children together for Thanksgiving?

“We had a lot of laughs. We all got along.”

Five of the brothers are still alive, including a 90-year-old. All three sisters are alive. One of his brothers, Henry, was football coach at San Pedro for 12 years. Henry was drafted and ended up in the Vietnam War, where environmental issues might have led to the illness, lymphocytic leukemia, that took his life in 1991.

Two of his brothers worked for the LAPD. Two other brothers became firefighters. He has a grandson who’s a deputy sheriff in Riverside.

Pacheco has worked five state track championships and numerous City Section championships.

Like an umpire in football who calls a holding penalty, the only time anyone notices a starter in track is when there’s a false start.

“If there’s a false start, someone complains,” he said.

So why spend 49 years as a track starter?

“The fun part is watching all the athletes compete and being around all the other officials,” he said. “The officials are tremendous and dedicated trying to do a good job.”

All this came out by just happening to stop by and say hello to the starters who are always pleasant and enjoy talking. Unless you ask a question, you’ll never find out about someone’s background.

So why wasn’t Pacheco wearing a red suit like the rest of his friends at Arcadia?

“I brought it just in case,” he said. “I was an alternate.”

Pacheco is always prepared, whether jumping out of planes or teaching life lessons to football players.

If anyone deserves a salute, it’s Saul Pacheco.