Bridge Day
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Bridge Day is an annual one-day festival in Fayetteville, West Virginia, that commemorates the 1977 completion of the New River Gorge Bridge. It is always held on the third Saturday in October. On this day, all four lanes of the bridge are closed to automobiles and opened to pedestrians. Bridge Day is the only day of the year people are allowed to BASE jump off the bridge into the New River Gorge 876 feet (267 meters) below. It is one of the few exceptions to a general ban on BASE jumping within the National Park System of the United States. Around four hundred BASE jumpers participate each year. People may also rappel from the span on Bridge Day.
Burton Ervin was the first man ever to jump off the New River Gorge Bridge, on Friday, August 1, 1979. Burton lived in Cowen, West Virginia, and was a coal mine foreman. Burton jumped a conventional North American Aerodynamics Mini Rig System with a 32-foot Lopo canopy.
[edit] Fatalities
There have been three deaths during Bridge Day due to accidents involving BASE jumpers.
In 1983, Michael Glenn Williams from Birmingham, Alabama, died by drowning when his gear was caught in the current after he made a successful jump. The one rescue boat that was in the river at the time was busy with other jumpers, and could not make it to him. In later years more than one rescue boat was always used, and parachutists were not allowed to jump until it was confirmed that one of the rescue boats was available.[1][2]
In 1987, Steven Gyrsting of Paoli, Pennsylvania, was jumping with non-Base Specific gear and was killed, after his main chute failed to deploy. He was then unable to open his reserve chute in time.[3]
During the 2006 festival, a parachutist, Brian Lee Schubert, died when he failed to deploy his parachute in time. In 1966 Schubert had been one of the first to BASE jump from El Capitan in Yosemite National Park. His death ended a 19-year safety streak in which no deaths had occurred during the festival.
