A tourist who attempted to BASE jump in Grand Canyon National Park last week died while BASE jumping, a high-risk recreational sport that involves jumping from fixed objects and landing with a parachute. It was the second death reported in the canyon in 24 hours.
According to a press release from the National Park Service, the park's communications center received a tip at approximately 7:30 a.m. on Aug. 1 that a BASE jump had been attempted from Yavapai Point on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. When park rangers arrived on the scene, they found the victim's lifeless body with a deployed parachute about 500 feet (150 meters) below the canyon rim.
America Today He later identified the jumper as Justin Guthrie, 43, of St. Anne, MO. The body was recovered by helicopter the next morning and transferred to the local coroner's office. The results of an investigation are pending, but the Park Service notes that BASE jumping is prohibited in all areas of Grand Canyon National Park and in most National Parks without special permits.
The previous day, on July 31, Abel Joseph Mejia, 20, of Hickory, North Carolina, died after falling 400 feet off a cliff about a quarter mile west of the Pipe Creek Observation Deck. The incident is being investigated as an “accidental fall.”
“Grand Canyon National Park staff encourage all visitors to have a safe visit by staying on designated trails and paths, maintaining a safe distance of at least six feet from the rim, and staying behind guardrails and fences at viewpoints,” the statement said.
Guthrie's death was the first BASE jumping fatality in more than a decade. David Strather, a 41-year-old respiratory therapist and surgeon from Calgary, Canada, jumped from about 2,000 feet off the top of a canyon near the confluence of the Little Colorado River and the main Colorado River channel.
Similarly, in 2016, a 29-year-old Santa Cruz man died while wearing a wingsuit, one of the most extreme forms of BASE jumping, while jumping off the Paria Canyon-Vermilion Cliffs Wildlife Refuge, a stretch of remote cliffs along the Arizona-Utah border.