An extreme sports star died during a stunt when he struck a tree trying to land during a skydiving show.
Erik Roner, 39, died after a skydiving jump at a golf course in Squaw Valley, near Lake Tahoe, California.
Roner, a professional BASE jumper and skier and a member of MTV’s Nitro Circus Live show, performed as the opening act of a golf tournament when he slammed into a tree on the way down and got tangled far up in its branches, too far to be easily reached from the ground.
The extreme sportsman died still hanging in the tree before rescuers could reach him.
“Erik was a beautiful man, great father, wonderful friend and the love of my life,” Roner’s wife, Annika Roner, said in a public statement.
Roner’s death comes on the heels of several other recent deaths in extreme sports.
In May extreme athlete Dean Potter and a companion died while BASE jumping with wingsuits in Yosemite National Park.
Potter and a fellow jumper had climbed the 7,500-foot promontory called Taft Point and jumped with bat-winged suits meant to allow them to glide to the ground. But something went horribly wrong as the parachutes designed to slow their descent never deployed.
In another incident famed free diver Natalia Molchanova was practicing tankless dives off the eastern coast of Spain, two miles west of La Savina at Poniente de es Freus, when she disappeared beneath the waves while deep diving without an air tank. Her body was never recovered.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com
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