A BASE jumping attempt within a remote canyon in southeastern Utah over the weekend killed two people, including a distinguished extreme athlete best known for performing a stunt-filled routine during Madonna’s halftime show in the Super Bowl in 2012.
The local authorities responded on Sunday to reports of an incident at Mineral Bottom, a secluded desert area inside a canyon in Grand County, Utah, the county sheriff’s office said. Two people were pronounced dead at the scene: the athlete, 39-year-old Andrew Lewis of Moab, Utah, and Danny Joe Kregle, who was in his 50s, the sheriff’s office said.
Mr. Lewis, who rose to fame for achievements in extreme tightrope walking, often crossing thin lines suspended high above oceans, waterfalls and deserts, ran an adventure sports business. The company, BASE Jump Moab, offers excursions in Utah including BASE jumping, a high-risk sport that involves parachuting off buildings, bridges, cliffs and other surfaces (BASE stands for “buildings, antennas, spans and earth”).
When the authorities arrived at the scene on Sunday, Mr. Kregle was attached to Mr. Lewis in what appeared to be a tandem BASE jump, said Jamison Wiggins, the Grand County sheriff. Mr. Kregle died on impact, while Mr. Lewis survived for about three hours as emergency medical workers tried to save his life, Sheriff Wiggins said.
The sheriff’s office is still investigating the cause of death for both victims, Sheriff Wiggins said. The office did not say how Mr. Kregle and Mr. Lewis, known as Andy, might have known each other.
Deputies have responded in the past to other BASE jumping accidents near Mineral Bottom. It’s a popular area for the sport but lacks cellular reception and can take up to an hour to reach from Moab, Utah, the sheriff said.
While no official tally of BASE jumping deaths exists, attempts at hot spots such as Yosemite and Grand Canyon National Parks have claimed the lives of several people in recent years — including other athletes renowned in extreme sports.
Over more than a decade of competing and performing, Mr. Lewis gained prominence for feats in several extreme sports, including slacklining and tricklining — high-stakes forms of tightrope walking that involve performing tricks atop trampoline-like thin bands strung above the ground.
At 25 years old, Mr. Lewis helped propel slacklining — then a niche adventure sport — into the mainstream when he took the stage alongside Madonna at the Super Bowl in 2012, wearing a gold-and-white toga while bouncing and back-flipping off a band suspended four feet above the stage.
“If I ever came close to having a seizure from crazy lights,” he told The New York Times after the performance, “that was the moment. ” A kiss on the cheek from Madonna mid-routine was his idea, he added.
“That was by the far the biggest thing that has happened for the sport,” Frankie Najera, a professional slackliner, said at the time.
Mr. Lewis in 2008 was crowned the first-ever slackline world champion, a title he won again in each of the following three years. He holds the Guinness World Record for slackline surfing, set when he swayed from left to right 143 times atop a thin slackline hung above a waterfall in Mudanjiang, China.
In 2014, he crossed a purple tightrope slung between two hot air balloons floating more than 4,000 feet above the desert in Nevada — one of the highest slacklines ever walked.
Mr. Lewis’s company, BASE Jump Moab, also offers hot air balloon rides, guided rope swings and climbing tours in the Moab area. The business could not be reached for comment on Monday.
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