Amber Bellows Falls 2000 Feet To Her Death While Her New Husband Watches

Amber Bellows, 28, fell 2000 feet to her death in a base jumping attempt that went tragically wrong.The accident happened Saturday at Utah’s Zion National Park.

It is impossible to comprehend the agony of Amber’s husband, Clayton Butler, as he watched her fall.

The newlyweds, who had been married for only two weeks, always enjoyed sharing their hobby of base jumping, which involves jumping from a fixed location, such as a tall building.

The base jumper has to judge the right moment to open their parachute to break the fall. Butler told park officials that Amber’s parachute failed to open after she jumped from Mount Kinesava.

He also told investigators he jumped after her but could not reach her. He explained that he hiked out of the park for four hours to reach park rangers. However, they were only able to recover Amber’s body the following day.

Commenting on the tragedy, a park ranger said, “Base jumping is not allowed at Zion National Park, so they really shouldn’t have been doing it anyway.”

Base jumping is actually illegal at all national parks. So, not only has Clayton Butler had to witness Amber Bellows plunging to her death, he now has to face an investigation into the circumstances.

This was the first ever fatality from base jumping at Zion National Park.

However base – or BASE*- jumping is significantly more dangerous than similar sports such as skydiving from aircraft, and is currently regarded by many as a fringe extreme sport or stunt. As of 4 February 2014 the on-line ‘BASE Fatality List’ records 225 deaths for BASE jumping since April 1981.

BASE jumping is one of the most dangerous recreational activities in the world, with a fatality and injury rate 43 times higher than parachuting from a plane.

* “BASE” is an acronym that stands for four categories of fixed objects from which one can jump: building, antenna, span, and Earth (cliff).

Sadly, Amber Bellows is now part of those statistics.