Re: [elduderino] da` list
Trying to attach significance to any particular year's number of BASE fatalities is complicated by the shit happens factor and who knows what else. But since I kept track of these fatalities for so long I do have some thoughts on the matter.
While accepting that the sport (as we know it) began 1978 the first fatality didn’t occur until 1981. At the time the sport was still very small overall with a handful of jumpers doing mostly the higher cliffs like El Cap and Half Dome.
Fatalities during the first 6 years:
1978 -0
1979 -0
1980 -0
1981 -1
1982 -2
1983 -2
1984 -1
The lone 1984 fatality was of course, Carl Boenish who died on a Norway cliff early that year. Since Carl was the closest we've ever come to having a single BASE Guru his death caused many to re-think their participation in BASE jumping. And you should have seen all the skydivers at the time. They mourned Carl respectfully all right, as he was very well known and respected in the skydiving community, but under their breaths they'd sneer at BASE and say, "I told you so, you assholes."
Everything changed when word got out that Phil Smith, and some others, started jumping other objects like towers, buildings, and bridges. This basically opened up the sport to anyone with a parachute and a suitable local object.
What is amazing is how few of the true pioneers of BASE actually died. Besides Carl, there was Jimmy Tyler, BASE 13, who was killed after hitting the wall of Half Dome. Jimmy was the sports first true glory hound although we didn’t know enough at the time to realize what a glory hound even was. Jimmy was regularly making the rounds of the first modern video clip TV shows like "That's Incredible" in early 80s. And it was from Jimmy where we originally got the idea that selling out the sport for personal gain was bad karma. When an old-timer laments people You-Tubing their BASE videos, Jimmy Tyler, is where that sentiment originated.
Another thing that contained early BASE fatalities was the low number of actual jumps made per participant. Sometimes it took weeks of study and figuring to make a single jump. This was a time when people made card board devices to figure out canopy glide rates. It was a time when nobody really had a BASE eyeball and they had to calculate everything. I remember some early road trips where I'd drive 300 miles, make one jump, and go home. I was happy and why press your luck?
In fact, when Mark Hewitt impaled himself on a steel fence after a line-over off a Los Angeles building we all went, "Wait a minute," as we thought line-over's happened mostly to round canopies, not squares, and if a square did line over you packed it that way. It never dawned on us the slider, or lack of a slider, would up-end a big bucket of BASE line-over malfunctions. After he healed Mark wanted to continue his BASE jumping but didn't want to ever again be shishkabobed. So he came up with the line-over modification.
So far we've already had two fatality free years (as far as I know.) Both 1991 and 1992 had no reported BASE fatalities. And who knows why? If I had to guess I would say maybe the initial rush, the newness of BASE jumping, was on the wane. It was also a period when BASE was the deepest underground. Also BASE gear was coming into its own, and it's the first time there were actual BASE jump courses being offered. Or maybe we were all just very lucky . . .
The worst years, so far fatality wise, have been 2002 to 2007:
2002, 11
2003, 8
2004, 7
2005, 7
2006, 13
2007, 14
Sure, their were more jumpers now overall, and more objects being jumped, but we also had better gear and oodles of passed on knowledge and education. So what happened? Again, if I had to guess, I would say BASE had simply become too normal. You can see that if you realize the early BASE jumpers were doing something only a handful of people did before them. Today's new jumper is doing something that many thousands of jumpers have done before them. In the 1980s only a few skydivers had enough interest in BASE to actually go make some. Today's newest skydiver, almost to a person, will say, "Yes, that something I want to do someday." BASE is now normal!
We've always been a resourceful bunch. Every time we came to a block we overcame it. The line-mod, tail-pockets, tailgates, etc, were all born from mishaps. We learned lock picking instead of using brute force; we learned how to protect sites from exposure, and ourselves from arrest. But the one overwhelming truth of BASE, for all jumpers, newbies and old hands too, is that every time you hang your toes over the edge there's a chance it will be the last time you see those toes.
I think the next ten years will be pivotal in BASE (but in all fairness I've always said that since the 1970s) but the largest wave of newcomers is, I believe, still ahead of us. And the downside is that maybe our largest fatality years are also still ahead of us. We have a few safety valves in place right now. We have Bridge Day, we have BLM land, and we have the Potato Bridge. But if for some reason those places ever go away, and to occur it would only take one very bad year, one lawsuit, or one wigged-out lawmaker and all of sudden a new generation of jumpers will be crawling around downtown at night with a big learning curve ahead.
To me, the most disturbing sentiment circulating in the BASE community right now is that BASE jumping isn't all that dangerous. Or, that BASE is only as dangerous as you make it. I suppose there could be something to that latter part, but only if the jumper makes a serious study of all that came before – and how many actually do that . . . ?
It's not all doom and gloom however. We are today doing the most spectacular things ever. But the fact remains it helps a lot to be good, or in lieu of that, be lucky. The best combo is to be good and lucky, and how many of us are that . . . ?
NickD
BASE 194
Winter is the best time to jump.........some stuff. 
any bad luck lately? 