[BC] BASE jumpers

[Mario Hieb, P.E.]

Unfortunately, the "A" in BASE stands for "Antenna."

More often, it stands for "accident."

Mario


6:52 PM 10/28/2005, you wrote:
>Message: 9
>Date: Fri, 28 Oct 2005 14:03:27 -0500
>From: "Davis, Jack L. (KTXL)" <Jldavis at tribune.com>
>Subject: [BC] Almost a Darwin award!
>To: "'broadcast at radiolists.net'" <broadcast at radiolists.net>
>Message-ID:
>         <9DCA470951C6D4118EAE0004ACA36A02016BCE22 at erd-sac-exmb1.tbc.trb>
>Content-Type: text/plain
>
>We had an incident last night where a BASE jumper climbed up one of the 2000
>foot towers in our local antenna farm and jumped.  Unfortunately for him he
>hit the 5th guy wire and slid down onto one of the sand dampers at about 200
>feet.  It took fire rescue from 7:15 PM until 12:10 AM to climb up the guy
>wire and lower him to the ground.  In Sacramento County this is considered a
>misdemeanor and is only punishable by a $1,000 fine and or 6 months in the
>county jail.  I have met with the other Chief Engineers from stations that
>own tall towers in the area and we are all going to contact the District
>Attorneys office and ask for the maximum sentence to try and discourage this
>activity.  We have had base jumpers in the past and not much has happened to
>them when they are arrested.  We have also contacted the Fire Department and
>they have agreed to go after the guy for expenses incurred during the
>rescue.  Considering there were 5 fire agencies, the county sheriff and the
>CHP plus 3 helicopters and life flight this could be a bigger penalty then
>the judicial route.