Before Sunday, 541 deaths around the world since 1981 had been logged by the BASE Fatality List, maintained by an online community for the sport. This year, 15 such deaths have been reported globally, according to the list.
Before Sunday, 541 deaths around the world since 1981 had been logged by the BASE Fatality List, maintained by an online community for the sport. This year, 15 such deaths have been reported globally, according to the list.
Long ago I came across some clip where it was claimed that there’s about 20 or so people who were integral to the development of the modern wingsuit and BASE jumping, and every single one of them died in a BASE jumping mishap.
That’s true of a lot of safety critical fields. Regulations/rules are written in blood
Whole lot of people had to die for us to learn about decompression sickness in diving
Some individual lessons in aviation cost us hundreds of lives
Early mariners died in droves for us to learn how difficukt the ocean is to cross
BASE just seems more shocking because of the recency. It developed very late, long after nearly every other safety critical field was mature
Cave diving is largely the same way
I get the concept, but it also seems that there’s degree of necessity to most of those other practices. Diving supported exploration, aviation and sailing did the same and travel. I think that part of the shock is that there isn’t an obvious necessity to base jumping or cave diving, and that the appeal is the danger for the participants.
The appeal isn’t the danger though. If it is you shouldn’t be doing it.
It’s one of the very few sports that gets more dangerous the more experienced you get.
Safety rules are written in blood.
Safety? In BASE jumping? No such thing.
There are a lot of safety rules. I get you’re trying to make a flippant joke, but that attitude has cost people their lives
They hear an activity is dangerous and don’t understand how important the safety procedures are at mitigating that risk
I can guarantee you there are mistakes that were made to cause this deaths, and lessons that can be learned from it