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Russian jumper.
Evening jump, windy, the girl had a poor track.
180 - linetwists - strike - didn't make it.

Damn! Do you know if the poor track caused the 180/line twist?

Unless there was clear footage, or another jumper close by on deployment, no one will know. And that's not really the point.

We've been over this, walk down if the winds are grater than 2-4 m\s.
Ecxeption is the guys in big big wingsuits, but they know just what the fuck are they doing.

This is not the case.

Hate to hear it.

Anyones knows the wind conditions at exit?

BSBD

Two days ago a stranger departed from the train.

I met her on the way to an attempt at a jump in the morning. She was by herself at Brento and because she was staying at Fabio's B&B on the back side of the mountain the other jumpers didn't get a chance to meet and converse with her while waiting for the BASE Bus to arrive down at the bar.

Fabiot picked her up at his house, about 2/3 of the way to the exit point. She hopped in the van quietly and wasn't paid much mind. Then we continued toward the exit point for what was supposed to be the second morning jump. However, half the jumpers were still on the exit from the first "load" due to a rotor cloud forming at the top of the wall and remaining around the exit all morning.

On the hike up, I spoke with her only a little as our groups stretched out over the long trail and I only knew her by only by what was presented on the surface.

She was energetic, young, beautiful and smiling, just smiling in every moment.

From the moment she introduced herself she was smiling in a way that lead me to think she was about to burst with the excitement at being there, yet didn't know how to let it out, especially in English or simply not in Russian. I got the impression she was dancing around the trees in her mind with enthusiasm at the possibility of her first jump from Brento. It looked like she could hardly contain what was within her.

In my youth, she would have been an enemy behind the iron curtain, but here I was just another jumper going through the similar emotions as I had when I first came there and I listened attentively as she shared bits of her story with me and all others around.

In one story, she talked of how once friend in Russia had told her that if he had a daughter he would never give her this woman's name because like so many other russian woman jumpers with her same name he would not wish his daughter to become a BASE jumper as well with all the worrying and potential heartbreak this could bring. This was a joke of course, and it was an amusing story at the time and she spoke it with a laughing enthusiasm, but yesterday and today it is more prophetic than humorous.

I hope she is remembered only warmly by her own family or by those less a stranger than me.

She was the embodiment of youthful excitement almost impossible to overlook. An excitement that I too still am overtaken by after 16 years of jumping but unlike here I too often quell it slightly or too quickly forget it. So, when I see it in another person like a glowing orb of joy I cannot help but smile.

And with the bits of stories she shared of jumping she gave me no reason to question her experience or her skill or do anything really but smile and listen, but then I was also distracted by walking through my own possibly upcoming jump and the other conversations.

This excitement that seemed so obviously present in her, this little great burst of joy from deep within when in me is for me the only reason I jump. To see it so apparent in another is always welcome and refreshing.

That morning we didn't jump, we split essentially into two groups and began to hike back to San Giovani. Some after talking were planning to taking the via ferrata/trail down to the bar and rushed ahead while others chose to hike back to the parking lot to either hitchhike or call Fabio for a ride rather than hike 3-4 hours. She was in the former and I was in the later so I didn't see her again until I was having lunch at the bar.

There were only three of us at the bar at the time. I was still waiting for visiting friends to wake up after a long night and was enjoying my coffee. She, without transportation was marooned as all the other jumpers had quickly scattered as they usually do with weather days.

What impressed me was that she had the courage to walk up and politely ask two strangers known as little more than two other jumpers, "If you two are going to go anywhere before the evening jump, can I come as well". She was on an adventure and looked bored because it was stalled by weather at moment it seemed and rather than just sit and wait for the evening load, she wanted to be around others. Even still she quickly left us and went off to sit around the packing area and an hour or so later she was brought back by the bartender for me to translate some questions into Italian for her and then returned to the packing area with a smile and thanks to take a nap. A few minutes later I departed with my visiting friends and went on with my day. When I walked by to grab my rig before leaving, she was sound asleep and I didn't think to disturb her.

A couple hours later when we returned for the evening jump she was ready and smiling as big as ever while staying quietly just outside the group, though every time I looked in her general direction it was hard to not take notice of that constant smile and the excited green/gray eyes.

When we got to the top, the winds were a little on the strong side and gusty at the exit but calm down in the valley.

As often happens when there are a lot of jumpers, everyone suited up and no one jumped while numerous conversations about the weather pursued. She was one of the first to be ready but still waited seemingly to judge what others were going to do rather than participate in the conversations. I hung out a while just to see if the winds were going to calm a little but then as the sun had set it was just starting to get dark we decided to jump before it got dark.

While waiting for the other part of my two way to finish zipping up I noticed she had near pitch-black goggles on under her helmet and suggested she not jump with them, but wished her and everyone well whether jumping or walking down and turned my attention to my own jump. As I did, she once again smiled. Marco was ready we exited flew back to the bar. It wasn't a turbulent wingsuit flight but the winds were just beginning to build at ground level but not strong.

After the jump we hung out to see if everyone that chose to jump was going to be alright and a half hour later already dark, people were still jumping at a very slow interval. This is already way past the point they should have perhaps been jumping as there is no way to see the canopy flight easily from the bar in the shadow of the wall with clouds blocking the moon.

Ten or fifteen minutes later we got word that another jumper had landed in the trees near the top of the talus, not her but another jumper, and that his canopy wasn't moving after someone had watched for a long time from above before jumping themselves. As the guy in the trees was all the way up the talus by the base of the wall, at least an hour away on foot in the day if you know the paths well and at night closer to 2-3 hours if we have to search, we called fire rescue as they are the only ones that can drive in the forest due to locked barricades and in doing so it will take them five to ten minutes from the parking lot versus our walking and time seemed more important given night was already here and he was likely injured.

However, a couple minutes later Fabio called to say the jumper that had been in the trees had called him and was ok and hiking down.

But, before we called off the fire rescue supervisor, we took an inventory of the faces we'd seen up top versus those on the bottom. Her name was the only one unaccounted for, but most people didn't even remember who she was or that she was on the jump since she had stayed off to the side during all the discussions of winds, approaching night, calling Fabio to go back down etc. She was nearly forgotten.

After this we started asking around to see if anyone saw the Russian Girl jump, as perhaps she landed at the "Heli-landing", concrete helipad or maybe on one of the forest roads. Perhaps even she simply landed in the main LZ and was overlooked with the nervousness over the other jumper that had landed in the trees. But, again no one had seen her.

Then, we received a phone call from another jumper who said she had jumped and that she had opened with line twists and had flown hard into the rocks on the talus near the base of the wall. We called fire rescue, updated them and they immediately called alpine rescue. Both arrived shortly after. They grabbed Umberto (An itlalian jumper with 20+ years of Brento experience) and headed up to look while two of us stayed to gather and translate information about canopy colors and such and act as a barrier from a couple jumpers that were already acting belligerent and calling out that they "were killing her by having not yet called a helicopter" over and over again and saying that everyone should be hiking up to rescue her since the rescue crew aren't and that last time they were there someone also had been hurt and they were able to call the helicopter directly and it came right away and on and on.

- - - -

I am going to step away from the story of this girl now to vent for just a moment in hopes that you will be more understanding in the future if dealing with rescue personnel and also that you consider them and their safety as well as the risk you undertake by potentially not being rescuable if you jump after night comes over a heavily forested talus even close to a road in a semi-residential area.

Until all information is gathered if self-rescue is not the most expedient or necessary (Such as most bad incidents at Brento), wait for the trucks carrying qualified rescuers to arrive. It takes 5-10 minutes only and they are far faster than random jumpers hiking up the maze of paths to try to find people lost on the talus at night and also pose a potential risk for the rescue truck driving up the same roads at high speeds a few minutes later. I'm not saying to not run to someone's aid. I myself have had to self rescue people in the past and I am quick to run up to people's aid if they put themselves in the trees.

What I am saying is at night on a legal jump near an urban center like Brento where rescue personnel are very fast to arrive and very familiar with the area and where most jumpers are transients unfamiliar with the area even if they have jumped there before

How many of you have hiked to the base of the cliff to familiarize yourself with the forest roads and signs and also, how many of you have seen people land in the trees at Brento.

The alpine rescue crews are the Only Ones Allowed to Drive on the barricaded forest roads to the base of the wall which is by far quicker than hiking, I beg you to let them work when they are there and not get in their way and if they need help, that is when you can jump on and go with, but aside from a couple people familiar with the person injured or hung up, you will probably be in the way.

For people that don't know me, I am a former military and civilian helicopter rescue pilot and to answer the shouting of some people saying that the rescue crews were killing her by not having a helicopter there yet or that in the past the helicopter simply came when a jumper called them directly, there is absolutely no way a helicopter was launched in the past simply by some random civilian with a cell phone number calling them directly rather than the request going through an authorized ground rescue supervisor (This goes the same for Italy, France and the United States).

It isn't a matter of money or any of the other stupid things people were screaming about toward what they considered an excessively slow rescue that was in their uninformed opinion to be lacking what they considered the only necessary rescue element that would save a life, the helicopter. There is more to a rescue than just a helicopter, a lot more and a helicopter may have even been called but they do respond to other emergencies than just jumpers and it is even possible they were away on such a call when this initially happened, but these were not accepted as reason to quell the shouting.

Also, flying a helicopter at night under an overhung exit point on a wall that is very much alive with falling rocks like Brento is never quick decision come to by any rescue supervisor. It is a high risk not only to the stranded/injured jumper/climber/hiker/etc. but also to the rescuer (They are not expendable just because they chose the profession of rescuer).

Add to this the condition of night with minimal moon exposure (Intermittant cloud cover) and everything happens much more slowly by necessity, about 1/4 or less than the speed of daylight rescues.

Potential for safe rescue should be part of everyone's pre jump considerations in the event of an unlikely screwed up jump, not just the inexperienced.

In the future if you are in this situation try to remember that things take time and reckless cowboys trying to rush to the situation in a hoard can cause further injuries or hindrances to the rescue personnel that will only further delay the rescue process or even cause it to be cancelled before complete.

Again, only the authorized on-site supervisor is authorized to launch a helicopter due to limited resources and necessary confirmation of the situation and the fact also that the helicopter will have very little fuel to help until the ground personnel are ready.

Usually a helicopter regardless of type will have little more than two hours of usable fuel which has to include all of the following:

-the flight time from their base after launch
-time to search for the victim from the air
-orbiting while the ground personnel reach the victim to prepare them for extraction
-then the extraction process itself which will consume a high quantity of that small amount of fuel.
-then you have the flight to the hospital
-and finally it does not end there for the helicopter as they still have to fly past the hospital to an airport before they run out of fuel or hit their reserve amount for the given weather conditions.

At night they also are required to keep a larger amount of fuel in reserve further reducing that amount that can be used during the rescue.

This typically makes for a very short amount of flight time available to be on site over the accident scene (Possibly as little as only 15-30 minutes in total).

Then if t is cloudy or stormy they may not be able to launch at all (Neither conditions were a problem on Monday).

In the end, they found her body pretty quickly since there had been a witness placing her somewhere along the line between the base of the wall and they arrived a short time after the call had been placed with a large spot light to search the wall and upper talus from the ground with binoculars.

When they did find her she was found to have died on impact by the scope of here injuries to her face and head.

Even still, they were still on site at six yesterday morning finishing up the recovery and we received the word then that she had died.

- - - - -

The third part of this post is one that has been getting much worse in Brento specifically the last couple years and from home many of you are probably already probably thinking, why did a person jump at night with moderate wind in the first place and I agree with you that especially those that stayed after the sunset should have hiked down to be picked up and driven to the base.

At night this is a free service that Fabio who drives the BASE Bus provides to prevent just such and injury of fatality. All you have to do is call him and he will come back up with his van. This shouldn't be abused, but it is there and you've already paid for it if you went up with him.

The conditions even before the sunset on Monday night were not for the inexperienced and marginal even for those flying wing suits and able to distance themselves from the wall and forest before reaching calmer lower altitude winds.

Please think about who else you put at risk before you leap into bad conditions at night even at a place like Brento as there is very little accountability of the number of or persons who jumped and also little accountability of who has landed safely or walked back down. This is complicated to some degree since there are multiple landing areas, but this woman's incident was almost overlooked because she visiting alone and others only barely took notice of her at all.

The other side of this, is even during daylight there has been a very high number of line twists into the trees near the top of the talus and subsequent injury or need for rescue and an excessively high number of tree landings from late morning jumps that shouldn't have happened because of the winds.

Everyone wants to jump as much as they plan to, but Brento has a weather pattern that has been documented well for over two decades and jumping with strong afternoon or evening winds will leave you with maybe a forest road to land on if you are lucky. Last month when I was there a number of jumpers enjoying their first big wall leaps and "Training" for Switzerland, etc. landed in the trees every jump. That was just stupid. Brento is an extremely forgiving exit point, but it is not jumpable in high winds.

My visit to the area this weekend's was better, but Monday night's jump was a devastating exception and shouldn't have happened. Take a look at the people with you on the exit point and maybe ask them where they plan to land and if the weather is sketchy, ask them their opinion. This goes the same if they are quiet or if they are outspoken unpleasant.

I feel I let her down Monday night by not addressing her and a couple other unfamiliar jumpers more specifically on their experience and more strongly suggesting that they consider going back down or at very least make a decision to jump or not to jump well before it gets dark before I leapt.

I am not, nor are any of the locals policeman of this wall. It is free for use by jumpers of all levels without much oversight. If you aren't familiar though, the cultural mentality in the area is to accept adventurers openly but when injuries are seen first hand or a death happens it is not easily forgotten among the local non-jumping residents and there is always a threat of the wall being closed not because they don't want jumpers, but because they cannot bear to hear of someone dying, even a stranger.

Remember this when you are with someone that is doing something that they should be called out on and high wind tree landings are not in any way funny, If frequently, they are a symptom that you've gone way to far and are possibly screwing others as well as yourself.

- - - - -

To finish, this woman was a very bright part of my day with her smile and enthusiasm and a devastating tragedy for our sport and for the ITW that she died. Maybe she wouldn't have jumped if I or someone else had asked her how she felt with the poor conditions and dwindling light and walked down a second time in one day or maybe she still would have. I don't know. I do feel like I let her down by not asking and I would have much rather enjoyed hearing about her life in Russia and her jumps elsewhere from the bar looking up at the wall among friends than staying at the bar until after 1 in the morning hoping like everyone else just that she will be found quickly and not only alive but in a state she would be able to recover from.

So, you may attack her for her choice or the choices of those that were with her like muself, but I am going to try to remember this next time I'm in the same situation and for now simply remember her great smile and hope that I don't lose any more friends or happy strangers so abruptly without even a goodbye.

Be safe and enjoy it.
Nathan

thank you for this mr. nathanblaesing. your description of this young girl is beautifully written and you've created an image of youthful exuberance and joy that I will treasure. she is no longer a stranger to me but an icon to the person I remember being once upon a time. the ability to find joy is so easily lost as we grow older and jaded by life's trials and tribulations. I hope that her family finds this post someday and appreciates that her death was not in vain but has touched not one, but two strangers.

littlestranger aka teresa

Many thanks for this.
I was on the morning load there that day and remember this jumper getting on the bus - your description is very much how I recall her as well. I had been there for a few days and noticed her as a 'new person', but we separated on the hike and I never spoke to her.
Unfortunately I had to leave that afternoon to return home, but when I saw this post some hours later I knew it must have been her. I'm glad you took the time to talk to her, I wish I had.

BSBD

Absolutely fantastic. Very well written.

I'd like to caveat on those who were belligerently calling for the helo rescue:

Attention all jumpers: Nobody is responsible for your dumbass when it leaps off a 2000' foot cliff except yourself. If you dont agree with that, find another sport, like yahtzee, or crochet.

Every time you jump, you've committed suicide, only to be saved by a piece of nylon fabric in the last seconds. If you expect somebody to come for you, then dont jump.

You're fortunate every time your canopy opens on heading, without a malfunction.

You're even more fortunate that if it doesn't open ideally that someone is willing to come get you.

But neither of these things are guaranteed to happen.

How the flying f%$& is that a surprise to anyone?

Thank you for this post. Being on that load ( I've exited just before her ) I couldn't express the same kind of feeling I have better than you did. Not the first fatality I've been around, but its been harder for me since its the first where I actually feel I could make a difference. Pretty sure that if I had chose to walk down ( if any person decided to walk down ) those jumpers with lower experience and / or less confidence in their abilities and weather conditions ( one could spot more people like that on the exit ) would follow. I could almost see on some people faces that they were just looking for someone to bail out. But since others were jumping, landing rather safe it might have put those jumpers gut feelings ( its not good to jump ) into question ( after all these guys before me jumped and landed OK ). Ive seen such scenarios (kind of a sheep mentality kicking in) too often at brento afternoon jumps, and usually avoid going on these. Personally I think that wind conditions were far from perfect but were not a direct cause of this particular accident. They were definitely a scare factor though that made people more nervous about the jump and caused them to wait past the time its reasonable to make a jump. In case of this girl the additional scare factors could have been that one of the jumpers ( who with the experience he had and gear he was wearing, should not have been at the exit at all no matter the wind conditions) landed in the trees just a 4-5 minutes before ( really inneficient track in cruise suit opened way to low ). Then those mentioned dark goggles. Also I met her this May when she was at Brento with her friends. At that time she was doing slick jumps, flat and stable, no aerials. Not sure how many and what kind of jumps she made back then ( I left before them). Now she had tracking suit ( intrudair - not sure about the model as I'm not familiar with that brand, but from the size of the leg it seemed like something I would describe as being performance wise between pts and regular pf ts) doing a front flip on the first jump of the trip. I would imagine that this all would lead to a lot of stress buildup on this particular jump.

Bart

I was there too on the same day as when the woman was initially hurt or killed.

We made a morning jump and the jump went well. The winds looked good based on visual inspection - cloud formation along the cliff wall all the way from the bottom bowl to the top. We ate lunch and were considering a 6 pm load. I have only jumped Brento 6 times so my knowledge of the local wind conditions called the Orro winds was poor. I had to rely upon a very experienced jumping guide Spacy Tracy Walker (base283). When we came to Brento 10 years previously, we gained an appreciation of the tricky wind conditions that can exist when we threw a fist sized rock over the cliff edge and after falling 50 feet, hovering for 5 seconds, it caught wind, and went flying back past us and over our heads.

When we returned to the landing area after lunch, the cloud formation on the wall was wild, with wind recirculating cloud spirals and obvious wind sheers. Tracy advised me and another jumper (and everyone in our group) to not attempt any jumps for the rest of the day, including night time because he said it would easily result in a fatality if anything went wrong on the jump - based on his extensive historical knowledge of the wind behavior there. I was interested in a night jump because of the full moon but any jumps that day were ended.

After dinner after dark, we noticed while passing the landing area that there was a spotlight from the landing area up onto the cliff wall and the sound of a helicopter at the pad was obvious. There was no way to do a night rescue because no one knew where the jumper was located. It was obvious at this point to me that the jumper would have to wait until dawn if she was still alive; My gut feeling was that she would die if not already dead because of the long wait time.

In the morning, I heard a helicopter go the rescue location and then fly out. When we passed the landing area, we were informed that she had died and there was massive facial trauma. Any other injuries were not apparent and the cause of the death may not be known at this time, at least to me. I do not know where she struck or landed.

The inability of a prompt rescue at night without a personal visual beacon at this location for any injured jumper could cause a fatality. Even a simple broken leg can kill if not treated within a certain time line due to shock or internal bleeding.

Any name released yet of the girl?

Many thanks Nathan for taking the time to write this and share your thoughts and feelings about what happened on Monday. I am sure that reading this will make a difference to many people. Definitely it will help me.
It was nice meeting you and hope our paths cross again in the future.
Luis

Her name was Maria Shipilova.

Thank you.

Nathan, I just read your article about the Russian girl who died last week while we were at Brento. The article was excellent. No idea you were such a writer. Now we find that Abraham died a couple days ago on Brento, but at least we got to party with him a few nights before at the festival. Anyway, a very good article and well written.

I believe this is a photo of Maria from her prior trip to Brento

Nathan! Many thanks from family of Masha, her friends and me.
10/04/2015 we installed memory table of Masha in Brento.
In the table write: "Do not forget those who love you and wait for you"
If someone decides to jump into the border weather conditions - let him think again and assess weather conditions and its condition at the moment ...