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A play Base jumping mishap successful a Utah canyon killed 2 people, 1 of them a daredevil jock champion known for performing onstage pinch Madonna astatine nan 2012 Super Bowl, authorities said.
The sheriff’s agency successful Grand County, Utah, confirmed 1 of nan dormant was Andy Lewis, an utmost jock known for feats successful Base jumping, a vulnerable athletics that involves parachuting to nan crushed aft jumping from a gangly fixed entity specified arsenic a building, a span aliases a godforsaken cliff overlooking a heavy canyon.
Lewis was besides a salient fig successful nan niche sports of slacklining and tricklining, which harvester elements of high-wire stepping pinch aerial acrobatics – sometimes astatine perilous heights.
Lewis went from obscure jock to overnight personage erstwhile he appeared onstage successful Madonna’s 2012 Super Bowl half-time show. Dressed successful a Roman toga, Lewis bounced and executed tricks connected his inch-wide statement for illustration it was a trampoline while Madonna sang down him.
“My telephone really rang itself to decease 3 days successful a row,” Lewis said soon aft successful an quality connected Conan O’Brien’s late-night show.
Emergency responders were dispatched Sunday to a study of group injured successful a Base jumping effort astatine Mineral Bottom, a distant godforsaken area adjacent nan Utah-Colorado line, according to nan sheriff’s office. Lewis and an unidentified 50-year-old man died astatine nan scene, nan sheriff’s agency said successful a news release.
Sheriff’s Lt Al Cymbaluk confirmed to nan Associated Press that it was Lewis who died. He said he had nary further specifications connected nan fatal accident.
Lewis owned Base Jump Moab, a business that offered excursions to inexperienced customers utilizing tandem jumps, successful which nan customer was harnessed to a guideline wearing nan parachute.
At nan aforesaid time, Lewis openly acknowledged nan sport’s inherent danger.
“It’s weird to deliberation astir really galore group are dead, because it’s for illustration a normal thing,” Lewis told documentary film-maker Ella Warnick successful an question and reply published past year.
No 1 instantly returned phone, matter and Facebook messages near Monday for Base Jump Moab.
Lewis won 4 consecutive world championships successful competitory slacklining from 2008 done 2011. Lewis group a Guinness World Record for slackline surfing, swaying his feet broadside to broadside successful a rocking mobility that mimics surfing, while keeping his equilibrium supra China’s Diaoshuilou waterfall successful 2011.
In 2014, he walked a slackline suspended betwixt 2 basking aerial balloons much than 4,000ft (1,200 meters) supra nan Nevada desert.
