Man dies in base jump off tower near Silverton

Joce DeWitt, Statesman Journal 3:32 p.m. PDT July 17, 2014


A 38-year-old Portland man has died while BASE jumping off a 1,000-foot tower near Silverton.
A friend of Zachary Sommer called the Marion County Sheriff's Office Thursday morning after Sommer went out for a BASE jump Wednesday and never called them back.
Deputies responded to the tower southeast of Silverton and found Sommer's body. The tower is located on private property and is about 1,000 feet high, deputies said. They did not release the exact location.
BASE jumping is jumping from a fixed object (building, antenna, span, and Earth) and using a parachute to break the fall.
Deputy Steve Cooper of the sheriff's office believed that Sommer grabbed a lanyard --a part of the stash bag used to package the parachute after the jump -- and the handle to deploy his pilot parachute, which prevented deployment of the parachute.
The Marion County Sheriff's Office said that there are no legal places to BASE jump in Marion County.