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Bridge Day
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Bridge Day is an annual one day festival in Fayetteville, West Virginia that commemerates the 1980 completion of the New River Gorge Bridge. It is always held on the third Saturday in October. On this day the bridge is 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 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 to ever jump off the New River Gorge Bridge, Friday Aug 1st, 1979. Burton lived in Cowen WV and was a coal mine foreman. Burton jumped a conventional North American Aerodynamics Mini Rig System with a 32 foot Lopo canopy.
There have been a total of three deaths during Bridge Day due to accidents involving BASE jumpers.
In 1983, Michael Glenn Williams from Birmingham, AL died after making a successful jump, but drowned in the river after his gear was caught in the current, and pulled him under. 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 were available. [1][2]
In 1987, Steven Gyrsting of Paoli, PA was killed after his main chute failed to deploy, and he was unable to open his reserve chute in time.[3]
During the 2006 festival, a parachutist, Brian Lee Schubert, died when his parachute failed to open in time. Schubert was an experienced BASE jumper; in 1966 he became one of the first to BASE jump from El Capitan. This ended a 19-year safety streak in which no deaths had occurred during the festival. [4]