California jumper dies at bridge festival
Thousands of people watched a pioneering parachutist from California jump to his death from a bridge during a festival Saturday when his chute opened too late, a sheriff said.
Brian Lee Schubert, 66, died of injuries suffered when he hit the water 876 feet below the New River Gorge Bridge during West Virginia’s annual Bridge Day festival, said Fayette County Sheriff Bill Laird.
Schubert, from Alta Loma, Calif., had been well-known in the sport of BASE jumping since 1966, when he and a friend became the first people to jump from El Capitan in Yosemite National Park.
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