Woman dies in BASE jump on Snake

BOISE – A 34-year-old California woman died Monday when she slammed into the Snake River after her parachute failed to deploy following a 486-foot leap from a southcentral Idaho bridge that’s the world’s most-frequented BASE jumping location.

The Alameda, Calif., woman, whose name wasn’t released pending notification of family, is the third person to die since 2002 after jumping from the Perrine Bridge on U.S. Highway 93.

More than 5,000 jumps are made annually from the bridge, the only location in the U.S. where BASE jumpers – short for the buildings, antennae, spans and earth from which participants leap – aren’t required to get a special permit for year-round jumps.

The fatal jump was recorded on multiple video cameras of fellow jumpers. Those who had reviewed tapes of the jump, which occurred at 12:10 p.m., described the cause of the accident as a “total malfunction” of her parachute system, law enforcement officials said.

It was the fourth accident at the Perrine Bridge in just four days.

On Friday, a 29-year-old Canadian, Jason Cooper, was airlifted to the intensive care unit of a Boise hospital after spiraling into the river.

A spokeswoman at Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center said Monday that Cooper was still in “critical care.”

On Monday, a woman suffered a back injury at 10:44 a.m. and was taken by helicopter to Magic Valley Regional Medical Center in Twin Falls. An hour later, emergency workers were called back to the bridge after a male jumper suffered an apparent broken leg.