Teen Watches Father Plunge 23 Storeys To His Death In Gruesome BASE Jump Gone Wrong

A man was reportedly killed in San Diego on Tuesday, March 22, in a BASE jumping incident after his parachute reportedly did not deploy during the jump, killing him while his daughter watched from the rooftop.

The 48-year-old man, whose name has been withheld from the public by police officers, jumped from the Palisade UTC apartment in San Diego, a structure that is over 277 feet tall. A witness in the area said that they heard a pop before looking from his balcony and seeing the man sprawled in the concrete, bleeding from below, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune.

Authorities came in and attempted to apply CPR and other life-saving procedures on the man, but he died before reaching the hospital. The man’s 16-year-old daughter reportedly saw her father die from the rooftop where he jumped off from, the New York Post reported.

“It’s not just one life lost, it’s another that is completely devastated,” Captain Scott Wahl of the San Diego Police Department said. “Our heart goes out to her and the rest of his family.”

“At this point, we believe that his daughter was up on the rooftop with him, and was able to view what happened,” he said. “As a father of four kids, I can’t imagine the devastation that this family is going through.”

The police officers are currently investigating the incident, which they say may have been caused by either a faulty parachute or the fact that the building may not have been high enough to attempt BASE jumping from, FOX San Diego reported.

“He had planned to deploy a parachute and survive the jump,” Wahl said. “He’s got a history of doing different types of jumps. Really it’s a tragic event. It’s one that’s absolutely avoidable.”

BASE jumping is where you jump from fixed points or objects with nothing but a parachute. BASE stands for Buildings, Antennas, Spans, and Earth, which are the things that you can jump off from. Typically illegal, many who are caught can be arrested for the act.

“It is a crime to jump off the top of a building like that, for obvious reasons,” Wahl said. “Being a misdemeanor, it can be a citable offense and it can be a bookable offense.”