Stuntman hits tree at speed
AN EXTREME sports star who once ‘‘flew’’ with an umbrella to mimic Mary Poppins has been killed skydiving after he struck a tree at high speed during the opening ceremony for a charity golf event in California.
Erik Roner was a member of Nitro Circus, a collective of friends and extreme sports athletes with their own MTV show. The group’s website had described him as someone ‘‘who travels all over the world trying the most unthinkable stunts’’.
On Tuesday he was the third member of a three-man parachute team to jump at the 4th annual Squaw Valley Institute celebrity golf classic.
Roy Tuscany, a friend who saw the incident, said the other two jumpers landed safely on the fairway of the ninth hole but Roner, 39, hit a tree.
With his parachute caught in the branches, Roner dangled out of reach of people on the ground.
‘‘There’s no protocol for this kind of rescue,’’ Tuscany said. ‘‘There’s no manual. It was just horrible.’’
Roner was pronounced dead at the scene. Tuscany said his friend, who leaves a wife and two children, had been ‘‘hilarious’’ and a ‘‘stand-up guy’’.
Roner was a pioneer of ski base jumping, in which participants ski off a cliff with a parachute. Last year he recreated a scene from the film Up, being airlifted to 2500 metres by coloured helium balloons.
He returned to the ground by shooting the balloons with an air rifle and parachuting down.
His death came four months after Dean Potter and Graham Hunt were killed in a wingsuit accident in Yosemite national park after hitting rocks.