Basejumper.com - archive

Steve Morrell, BASE 174:

"Damn the cops! Full gravity ahead!"

"That antenna looks like a death sandwich without the bread!"

 

now there are so many women in the sport that i now have to say "put on your gear and die like a ... person."

An additional short Steve story when he was living in Saudi Arabia:

This was confirmed a few months later when Steve was invited by a friend to attend an execution. Two men were beheaded (Steve thought it was for drug dealing) He got a great "I attended a double header tee shirt" but admitted privately that it shook him up to see the sword fall and the heads roll. Even more disconcerting was an accompanying execution by stoning of a woman for adultery. The stoning methods were much more modern than the old pick up and hurl a stone of biblical times. The woman was placed in a pit, and a dump truck full of rocks was backed up and emptied on her. "It's not them, it's just their culture" Steve repeated to himself, with considerably less conviction.

My favorite Dead Steve quote has to be:

"3-2-1-Party 'til Impact!"

Steve was a trip, in all places, at all times...never a dull moment! Steve on women...

"I like my women anorexic. Give me an Ethiopian woman any day"!
and if you remember his pig...
"Fat Chick, Fat Chick ... SQUEAL SQUEAL!!

I made my 1000th with Steve while he was making his 1000th. We made a wedge off of a tandem which was my wife making her 1st jump...

So many quotes in my log book, he used to always write in Led Zep and Pink Floyd lyrics...I miss Steve.

And don't forget the story of his scheduled flight out of the Middle East that he missed because he had a broken leg. That flight was to connect later at Heathrow with Pam Am Flt.103, the 747 that was blown up over Lockerbie, Scotland.

NickD
BASE 194

The accident that saved his life

You would think that, having been charged with a felony in the States, barely escaping expulsion for the Air Force, being sent to Saudi as a punishment—and all for BASE jumping from a cliff—Steve would have been a little chastened. Alas, no. What did he do as soon as possible after arriving in Saudi? He went looking for a cliff, the purpose of which it does not take a genius to guess. (I must interject here: He sent me a photograph of himself at the bottom of said cliff, looking happy as could be, with this caption on the back: “ Me, shortly after making the first cliff jump in Saudi Arabia, a bitching 500 foot cliff I found in the desert!” Actually, it’s one of my favorite photos of him. It captures perfectly his personality, his smile, and that devilish gleam in his eyes. Also, the caption in pencil was so very Steve. Did the man ever write with a pen?)
If I’m not mistaken, this must have been the very cliff that almost cost Steve his life but also saved his life in a bizarre turn of events. Near the end of 1988, Steve did a jump from a cliff in the middle of the desert, far from the nearest road. Friends video- taped the entire affair. Immediately before the jump, Steve, ever the macho man, grabbed his crotch, yelled, ”Party ‘til impact!” and jumped. Very shortly after that, there was a thud, clearly audible on the tape, followed by some pretty loud screaming allllll the way to the bottom. Then silence. The friends at the top of the cliff started yelling, “Steve, are you all right?” repeatedly, probably for several minutes. Finally Steve’s tiny voice could be heard from below, “Nooooooooo!” He had rammed into the cliff, shattering both feet and ankles. Later, he showed the video (to me anyway) over and over, finding it highly amusing. Weird.
It took his friends several hours to carry Steve back to their vehicle. At one point, Steve claims that vultures were circling overhead like something out of a grade B movie. By the time he made it to the hospital his feet and legs had turned totally black. The Air Force would surely look upon this latest incident unfavorably, considering why he was there in the first place, so the official story became that he was rock climbing without a rope. I’m not sure which was dumber. ( I knew about the new BASE jumping, but I don’t know who else in the States did. It took his family a little while to see through the rock climbing story. Apparently the Air Force either bought it or pretended to. But there is the story that that Colonel that he helped land in a sandstorm protected him from immediate court marshal)
Due to his little “rock climbing” mishap, while he was in the hospital, Steve missed his flight home for Christmas. That flight turned out to be Pan Am Flight 103, which blew up over Lockerbie, Scotland. If it hadn’t been for his illegal BASE jumping, he would have died in 1988, and we would not have had him with us for eight more years. (As soon as I heard about Pan Am Flight 103, as usual my Steve ESP clicked in and I called his mother and learned, and as usual, that Steve had literally dodged another bullet.) Steve told me later that he thought he could have survived the disaster because he always had his parachute as carry-on luggage, and if he had had enough time, he could have bailed out. However, having just spent eighteen months in Saudi and being the only survivor MIGHT have cast some suspicion him. He was such an optimist, I always thought a fitting epitaph for his tombstone would be, “This is only a temporary setback.”
Steve’s mother has a great picture of Steve on his military flight home, both feet in casts after surgery to put his feet and ankles back together with as many screws, bolts, plates, etc., as required to create the bionic man, a big smile on his face that clearly says, “I am stoned on pain killers.” In fact, he frequently said that he never let anyone forget when he had a dose scheduled—nurses, doctors, custodians, whoever. Macho man could only take so much pain after all.

Friends video- taped the entire affair. Immediately before the jump, Steve, ever the macho man, grabbed his crotch, yelled, ”Party ‘til impact!” and jumped. Very shortly after that, there was a thud, clearly audible on the tape, followed by some pretty loud screaming allllll the way to the bottom. Then silence. The friends at the top of the cliff started yelling, “Steve, are you all right?” repeatedly, probably for several minutes. Finally Steve’s tiny voice could be heard from below, “Nooooooooo!” He had rammed into the cliff, shattering both feet and ankles. Later, he showed the video (to me anyway) over and over, finding it highly amusing. Weird.

The Steve Morrell Memorial page has moved to
http://home.roadrunner.com/~bmorrell/

Bob Morrell