BASE jumping accident kills 2 including well-known extreme athlete Andy Lewis

A play BASE jumping mishap successful a Utah canyon killed 2 people, 1 of them a daredevil jock champion known for performing onstage with Madonna astatine the 2012 Super Bowl, authorities said.

Emergency responders were dispatched Sunday to a study of radical injured successful a BASE jumping effort astatine Mineral Bottom, a distant godforsaken country adjacent the Utah-Colorado line, according to the sheriff's bureau successful Grand County, Utah.

The bureau confirmed 1 of the dormant was Andy Lewis, an utmost jock known for feats successful BASE jumping, a unsafe athletics that involves parachuting to the crushed aft jumping from a gangly fixed entity specified arsenic a building, span oregon godforsaken cliff overlooking a heavy canyon.

The victims had been conducting a tandem leap successful which 2 radical are harnessed together, according to a societal media station by Aerial Arts Moab, an acrobatics institution that described Lewis arsenic "co-owner and champion friend."

Lewis besides owned BASE Jump Moab, a concern that offered tandem jumps to inexperienced customers who would beryllium harnessed to a usher wearing the parachute. Promotional videos connected the company's website amusement pairs of radical stepping disconnected the edges of towering cliffs and concisely plummeting earlier their parachutes open.

Andy Lewis walks crossed a highline astatine the Fruit Bowl successful Moab, Utah, successful an undated photo. Jared Alden / Getty Images

Lewis' risk-taking knew fewer bounds  

In BASE jumping circles, Lewis had a immense pursuing and a estimation for pushing the envelope - leaping into tighter spaces oregon deploying his parachute aboriginal than his peers would dare, said John McEvoy, a BASE jumping teacher successful Twin Falls, Idaho, who has jumped with Lewis.

"He had an unthinkable level of athleticism and accomplishment that was developed implicit years of practice," McEvoy said. "But past helium would instrumentality an unthinkable magnitude of risk."

Grand County Sheriff Jamison Wiggins confirmed the different idiosyncratic who was killed was Danny Joe Kregle, a 68-year-old begetter and gramps who was described by a household subordinate arsenic an accomplished businessman.

"Danny had a fantastic consciousness of wit and was ever looking for ways to marque radical laugh," comparative Sydney Laverty told The Times-Independent. "One of his top joys was performing magic tricks alongside his granddaughter."

Lewis was besides a salient fig successful the niche sports of slacklining and tricklining, which harvester elements of high-wire walking with aerial acrobatics - sometimes astatine perilous heights.

He went from obscure jock to overnight personage erstwhile helium appeared onstage successful Madonna's 2012 Super Bowl halftime show. Dressed successful a Roman toga, Lewis bounced and executed tricks connected his inch-wide enactment similar it was a trampoline portion Madonna sang down him.

Andy Lewis appears during Madonna's halftime show astatine Super Bowl XLVI betwixt the New York Giants and New England Patriots connected Feb. 5, 2012, successful Indianapolis.  AP Photo / Charlie Riedel, File

"My telephone really rang itself to decease 3 days successful a row," Lewis said soon afterward successful an quality connected Conan O'Brien's precocious nighttime show.

BASE jumping overmuch riskier than skydiving, survey shows

Though there's nary authoritative tally of BASE jumping deaths, a database compiled by the website BASEaddict.com shows 540 full fatalities worldwide since 1981 - including 30 radical killed past year. Prominent deaths see BASE jumper Dean Potter and his climbing partner, Graham Hunt, who were killed successful 2015 portion attempting a wingsuit formation successful California's Yosemite National Park.

A survey focused connected BASE jumping successful Norway, published successful a aesculapian diary successful 2007, estimated that BASE jumping carried risks of wounded oregon decease 5 to 8 times greater than skydiving.

Lewis openly acknowledged the sport's inherent danger.

"It's weird to deliberation astir however galore radical are dead, due to the fact that it's similar a mean thing," Lewis told documentary filmmaker Ella Warnick successful an interrogation published past year.

Tandem BASE jumping carries further hazard due to the fact that it straps unneurotic 2 people, 1 of whom mostly lacks experience, nether a azygous parachute, McEvoy said. But due to the fact that they impact novices, they besides thin to beryllium the astir low-risk, basal types of jumps.

"Within BASE, it's a precise arguable topic," McEvoy said. "There's a batch of radical who accidental it's the stupidest happening successful the satellite and others arguing: `No, we're giving radical the acquisition of their lives.'"

No 1 instantly returned phone, substance and Facebook messages near Monday for BASE Jump Moab.

Lewis won 4 consecutive satellite championships successful competitory slacklining from 2008 done 2011. Lewis acceptable a Guinness World Record for slackline surfing, swaying his feet broadside to broadside successful a rocking question that mimics surfing, portion keeping his equilibrium supra China's Diaoshuilou waterfall successful 2011.

In 2014, helium walked a slackline suspended betwixt 2 blistery aerial balloons much than 4,000 feet supra the Nevada desert.

Lewis' different athletics made him an overnight celebrity, acknowledgment to Madonna.