A 27-year-old Salt Lake City firefighter died on Sunday after his wing suit failed during a BASE jump from a 700-foot perch in northern Utah, the authorities said.
The man, Gabe Reilly, was with a group of eight to 10 people before he jumped in a mountainous area east of Millville Canyon in Cache County, according to Chief Deputy Doyle Peck of the Cache County Sheriff’s Office.
Emergency crews responded just after 9 a.m. to a report of an accident that involved a BASE jumper, the Sheriff’s Office said. Mr. Reilly was “experienced in this type of activity,” Chief Deputy Peck said, but on this jump “something went wrong and he did not have enough lift with his wing suit.”
Mr. Reilly hit the ground “at a high rate of speed resulting in his death,” Chief Deputy Peck said.
A flight medical crew removed his body from the area.
The Salt Lake City Fire Department said in a social media post on Monday that Mr. Reilly had worked for the department for four years. He had followed “in the footsteps of his father,” who retired from the department in 2024.
Chief Deputy Peck said that the area where the accident took place, which is more than 45 miles north of Ogden, Utah, along the Idaho border, is popular for BASE jumping, a high-risk sport that involves parachuting off buildings, bridges, cliffs and other surfaces. (BASE stands for “buildings, antennas, spans and earth.”)
The episode came months after two people were killed in BASE jumps in southeastern Utah. Danny Joe Kregle and Andrew Lewis died during a jump at a canyon in Grand County, Utah, on June 14, the authorities said at the time.
The post Firefighter Dies in BASE Jump Attempt in Utah appeared first on New York Times.
