Fatality in the Swiss Valley. 15.04.06

[HELLvetic 0]

Let's not get it all mixed up. There were two fatalities. One at the nose on Saturday (Stefan Grossman) and one at yellow ocean on Sunday.

Base915 described the yellow ocean accident of sunday morning. He witnessed first hand what happend and in his words desribed the accident:

Quote

Second fatality was from YO. This was the jumpers second base jump. He went hand held, packed slider down. Started to rotate head low on exit, pitched and started to drop his right shoulder. Chute opened with a fast 180 right, he was on his left riser immediately but impacted the cliff and continued to impact the cliff a number of times till the tallus

I saw the footage of that jump and Base915's description is as acurate as they get. Nothing else more to say than it's a tragic and sad accident of someone with almost no base experience.

For the first accident, the one of saturday that happend at the Nose,
I/We are still trying to gather info as the picture is still not clear in regards to what exactly happened. People who witnessed the accident are not regular poster of DZ.com and I have yet to talk to one of them.

I will post a report of the Nose accident as soon as we have crystal clear accurate info in regards to what exactly happened during that jump.

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[Bigwallmaster 0]

thank you for the clarification.

[Trebec 0]

FUCKING A!!!

[HELLvetic 0]

Here is a report of the first accident which took place at the nose on Saturday april 15th.

Stefan was extremely conservative in his progression. His experience was about 35 bridge jumps, 2 building jumps, and a handfull (5 or 6 max) of cliff jumps he had made from the three most common exit points in LB during the few days prior to his accident.

Stefan had a prior jump from the nose, so it was not the first time he jumped there when he had his accident.
He was jumping an appropriately sized vented fox canopy with a 38 inch vented pilot chute.
Stefan was a well known, respected rigger and was on top of his game in regards to gear maintenance, set up and packing.

This is info gathered from people who saw the accident first hand.

Stefan was making a stowed, slider up jump from the Nose when he had his accident.
Same configuration as all the other jumps he had made in the valley in the prior days.

It has been reported that he made a stable exit, took a nice but conservative delay during which he tracked a little and pulled high above the talus.
The canopy inflated fully with a 180 at a reasonable distance from the wall. Wittness report that they saw him fly towards the wall with no visible attempt to turn the canopy around.
It is unknown if he had twists or not as this could not be seen from the top.
Stefan hit the talus a few times before the canopy collapsed and fell the rest of the way.
Stefan was found with the right toggle unstowed in his hand.

There is not much else I can say beside that Stefan was a very much loved and kind jumper who was very carefull in his progression. He was an amazing human being and he will be bitterly missed! He leaves a wife and two children. My prayers and thoughts goes out to them.

Fly free my brother...

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