Another botched jump!

[guest]

Well, two more of you people have gone and done another illegal jump and made a mess of it. Two BASE jumpers cut a lock on the gate to a tower on a PG&E 500,000 volt transmission line near Isleton, CA and jumped. The guy, Matthias Lundblad, did OK, but the lady, Bonnie Dutile (sorry, I'm not sure of the spelling of her name, they didn't show it on the news) got tangled up in the tower and was left hanging in the wind (literally). Someone nearby heard the calls for help and called the police, who arrested Lundblad and got the county rescue people to get Bonnie down from the tower. The jump was at around 6:00 pm PST, and they got her down at around 10:00 pm. Luckily they didn't have to shut down the transmission line, as this line provides power to parts of seven states and shutting it down would have caused a major disruption.

Now, how can you guys justify cutting a lock and trespassing and endangering the rescue people just so you can get your rocks off?

BTW, the reason I'm not revealing my name is because I don't want any of you guys coming and doing something stupid to me or my house. With spokespeople like BASE44 you don't need enemies!

[Gaz]

check this out...
Nuff said... http://www.sarinfo.bc.ca/Library/Rescues/LibRescues.html

[guest]

How may hikes were done last year worldwide? Probably billions? How many had to be rescued? How many BASE jumps were done last year? How many had to be rescued? Is the figure higher for the illegal jumps vs. the legal ones? Last night in Isleton it was 50% that went wrong.

Why do you need to jump off anything you feel like, anytime you feel like, even if the property owner doesn't want you there? PG&E put up a fence and a locked gate. These idiots cut the lock, that's vandalism. All of these sort of towers I've seen have "no trespassing" signs on the fence. They trespassed. If it was a hiker who did the same thing they should also get the book thrown at them! Let's say I owned some property that had the perfect cliff for BASE jumping, but I don't want to have to scrape people off the bottom and so I fence my property and put up "no tresspassing" signs, would you still justify coming onto my property and jumping just because you wanted to? At least one of you admitted awhile back on this board that you got a duplicate key to a padlock so you could go and jump off a radio tower near Atlanta, even though the radio station didn't want you jumping from their tower. What gives you the right?

[Gaz]

Okay, it’s a list of rescues – I think you were missing the point, the rescue/fatality situation occurs in more than just Base Jumping. While I do not condone vandalism, i.e. cutting locks, trespassing etc.. how many incidences of covert jumping would occur if there was public access to national parks? How many property owners would gladly give permission to adventurers if the sport was not perceived as an ‘illegal’ activity? Look at the situation in much of Europe! Base jumping may not be for everybody, but why place YOUR restrictions on someone else’s passion? It has been stated time & time again in this forum that Base Jumping is dangerous (as is Motor-racing, rock climbing etc..) but that’s our choice, and we, like the Nascar driver, accept that risk. If you want to restrict YOUR adventure activities to a walk in the park on a Sunday afternoon, so be it.

[guest]

So you're saying that if jumping is made legal in national parks than no one will be doing it illegally off the Golden Gate Bridge or PG&E towers or anywhere else? OK, let's do it! However, I doubt it will happen. Someone else said that if it can be jumped safely it will be jumped.

You guys do have some legal places to jump from, right?

Also, I think one reason why I wouldn't want anyone jumping on my property is because in this country if something goes wrong and you survive, you'll probably sue me. If you die, then your heirs will sue me.

[guest]

Anonymous,

Two things, in the almost twenty years I've been involved in this sport, I've hardly ever heard the sue word. And there has certainly been many chances for it to happen.

BASE jumpers just aren't the type that sue.

Besides what jury would find in our favor when the jury box would be full of people like yourself who would certainly feel a injured or dead BASE jumper got just what they deserved.

However . . .

I love the way you have us pulling all together here. Organizing BASE jumpers has always be a chore, but you made it look easy.

Thank you . . .

Nick_BR

[Mike]

This 'Anonymous' screwball makes me laugh out loud. And you're right Nick, he/she/it really does bring out the best in us. It is good for us to hear from the opposition, and see how weak their opinions really are.

By the way, you anonymous dork, the 'owners' of most of our sites are usually either the government or some giant communications corporation. So quit talking this "if it were my property" bullsh_t. Maybe tonight I'll come jump off your house, break my leg, and sue you. I guess you better put up a fence...

[guest]

even if you did Mike i would bet my bottom dollar you still wouldn't sue. not our style. kick ass maybe?