BASE jumping in the Blue Mountains ought attract a mental health assessment

February 11, 2021

BASE Jumping is a dangerous thrill-seeking pursuit involving jumping off high points into a precipice relying on a parachute opening to survive…or not.

BASE Jumping is for thrill-seeking or sensation-seeking nutters. “BASE” is an acronym that stands for four categories of fixed objects from which one can jump: building, antenna, span, and earth. Obviously double shot espressos don’t cut it.

Off Pierces Pass – a fav with a GoPro, or course!

The motivation is high risk flirting with death, so a psychotic condition approaching suicidal tendencies. BASE Jumping has always been brain dumb, beyond bipolar. Independent diagnosis of such needs to attract a mental health assessment.

I’ve seen the lower platform of Echo Point used for jumping off, and Hanging Rock is a fav circulated on social media. Police are aware, but government – local council and NSW Government ignore this, so by default condone it.

On 8th September 2015, Toby Benham, having a chronic addiction to BASE jumping, died in a death swing at Hanging Rock above the Grose valley in the Blue Mountains. He basically overdosed on the adrenalin, miscalculating his misadventure and slamming with force into the rock ledge.

His mates nicknamed him ‘Lucky Chance‘ (previously) – a rock climber, leaper, and all-around “stunt monkey” who apparently lived for the moment and thrived on high risk dare devil escapes over cliffs.

Lucky Chance died after hurling himself off on the 90-foot giant rope swing known in the Blue Mountains climbing fraternity as as ‘The Death Swing’. Are legends predestined to fate?

Lucky had survived an earlier scrape with The Death Swing. That incident, which was captured on video, showed his chute wrapping around his ankle as he somersaulted through the air only to disentangle and open just 30 feet above the ground. Lucky called that episode, “A really good adventure.”

The following year, he survived another close shave with death, but this one was much more costly. After jumping from a cliff in France, he struck a ledge more than 450 feet down and managed to open his parachute canopy at least partially. “He wound up suspended, unconscious, from his canopy, which was caught in a tree 300 feet above the grassy landing zone. He suffered a fractured jaw, a broken pelvis, open fractures in his left femur and heel—and a traumatic brain injury.”Fun? Well, the first part, not so much the second part.

After coming out of his coma, Lucky aged 32 returned to Hanging Rock despite having unpaid medical bills totalling $280,000. This time his swing clipped a ledge and sustained fatal head and chest injuries.

Unlucky risk manager, like this protégé doing a “one tuck double layout death swing” – such a temporary Australian.