BY PETER CHENEY, The Globe & Mail
March 17, 2007

A few evenings ago, a 38-yearold waiter named Tom counted up his tips after a long night at a restaurant and loaded up his Mazda 323 for a special, late-night mission. By 2 a.m., Tom and a friend were slipping past the construction fence of a condo project near the Gardiner Expressway.
On their backs were special parachutes designed to open quickly at extremelv low altitude. For the urban skydiver the right equipment is key to survival. Tom and his companion climbed upwards through the unfinished concrete stairwells. A few minutes later, they were standing on the steel arm of a construction crane, about 100 metres above the darkened streets.

There was a final equipment check. Then, they jumped, falling along the wall of the building for a few seconds before opening their parachutes and gliding down to a smooth· landing. And then they were gone, leaving a few astonished drivers in their wake.

"It was perfect." Tom says.

For nearly four years, Tom has' practised BASE jumping, by all accounts the world's most dangerous sport, in the heart of downtown Toronto, making late-night skydives from dozens of buildings (including one next to Toronto police headquarters)

"It's a rush," 'Tom says. "Downtown is my playground." His chosen sport makes Tom a member of a tiny fraternity that is driven by adventure and unimaginable levels of risk. There are only a few hundred BASE jumpers in the world, and the sport's website currently logs lO9 fatalities. BASE is an acronym of the names of the four types of structures that devotees jump from: buildings, antennas, spans (i.e., bridges) and earth (specifically, cliffs).

Like most BASE jumpers, Tom came to the sport after taking up skydiving - the comparatively safe sport of jumping out of airplanes. Tom made his first BASE jump in 1994 at Bridge Day. an annual event that serves as BASE diving's Mecca. Bridge Day is held in Fayetteville, W.Va., home to one of the world's highest bridges, a steel span that hangs 267 metres above the New River Gorge. For Tom, that first jump from the bridge was a hit of sports heroin: "That was it," he says. "I was hooked."

Back in Toronto, the nearest jumpable bridges and cliffs were several hours away. Then Tom realized that the buildings of the downtown core were possible launch spots. In 2002, he started making secret late-night jumps. There have been some interesting moments -like the time he and a friend sat for more than half an hour on the arm of a crane while a security guard smoked cigarettes below them, and another when he had to make a last -second aerial slalom to make a landing on Bay Street.


The highest building he's jumped was a 45-storey condo at Church and which allowed him to free-fall f four seconds before deploying his parachute. The lowest was just over 20 storeys, which allowed him just over a second of free fall.

His favoured buildings are condos under construction. He slips onto the site at 2 or 3 a.m. ahd climbs to the top floor. If there's a crane, he usually jumps from that, since it gives him a little extra altitude ..and gets him further a\vay from the building. He usually jumps vvith a friend, both for the camaraderie and so there will be someone to call 911 if things go wrong.

As soon as he hits the ground, he begins packing his parachute, on the assumption that someone has called the police. Seconds' after landing, his equipment is in a bag, completing a Superman-style conversion from outlaw jumper to ordinary citizen.

In more than 100 jumps, his worst injury has been a bruised heel from a hard landing. But he knows that much worse can happen. "This is a high-risk sport," he 'savs. "There's no room for error. That's just the way it is." Tom's unusual life is now the subject of a documentary film, called Jump, which will air at the Canadian Filmmakers Festival on March 24. Made by director Peter Riddihough, the film follows Tom and three friends as they jump from dO\\'11town buildings. The footage includes images shotby the jumpers using helmet-mounted video cameras.

Mr. Riddihough, who met Tom when they both worked as waiters at the same restaurant, was fascinated by his companion's high-risk activity. "I was blown away" he says. "What they're doing is amazing."

Tom lives on Bathurst Street near the 401, in an apartment filled with the accoutriments of his high-risk interests: there's a paraglider, a rack of motorcycle helmets, and his BASE diving rig. Although it looks ' like a skydivets parachute, the BASE rig is actually quite different, optimized for the odd requirements of jumping from extremely low altitudes.

The parachute is designed to open quickly at low speed. Unlike skydivers, who typically fall several thousand metres before deploying tlle parachute, BASE jumpers don't have time to reach terminal velocity. To compensate, the drogue - a parachute that pulls the main chute out of its container - is vastly oversized, so it vvill catch more air. Most significantly, there's no backup chute; if the main parachute doesn't open; there's no time to deploy a second one.

Jumping off buildings in downtown Toronto involves extreme risks. The low altitude and the building wall streaming by just metres away leaves no room for error. If the parachute doesn't deploy perfectly, it's all over. Once his parachute opens, Tom faces a new set of hazards: instead of the open fields that greet a skydiver. Tom must thread his way through a cat's cradle of power lines and awnings, aiming for a parking lot or a narrow street while fighting wind gusts that funnel thorough the downtown canyons. An unexpected car or pedestrian can present a last-second obstacle. More than once, he's been forced to land on a tiny section of sidewalk

Many consider BASE jumping the world's most dangerous sport. In a recent Forbes List of dangerous activities, it was ranked No.1, well ahead of sports like breath-hold free diving, hang gliding and motorcycle racing. Many of the sport's pioneers have died in the act, including Carl Boenish, an American many consider the father of BASE jumping. (Mr. Boenish died when he hit a rocky outcropping after jumping from a Nonvegian cliff in 1984.) Last year, Tom himself witnessed the death of another BASE jumping legend - 66-year-old Brian Schubert, who was killed at Bridge Day. Tom was waiting to jump as Mr. Schubert did a flip off the bridge, then failed to stabilize in the air quickly enough to deploy his parachute in time.

Although he was rattled, Tom made his jump a short time later, after emergency crews recovered rvlr. Schubert's body from the river below.

"You have to go on," he says. Asked how he deals with the obvious risks of his chosen sport. he replies: "I ignore them. That's the only way. Everyone does it. When you get into your car, do you think: 'Is this the day that I get T-boned by a truck?' "

Tom knows that BASE diving violates a number of laws, including trespassing, as well as federal aviation regulations that forbid flying within 150 metres of a structure, but he says he's comfortable with what he's doing.

"Why should I feel bad for fly'ing my parachute? I'm not hurting anyone:' he says. "What about people who drive around in SUVs talking on their cellphones? "They might kill someone. Not me."

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