Base Jump Off Cliff Goes Badly Wrong. British basejumper’s terrified face as his parachute failed to open when he leapt off 1,000ft cliff. A terrified basejumper hurtles towards the ground after his parachute failed to open when he jumped off a 1,000ft cliff. But amazingly Matthew Gough, 25, escaped with only minor cuts and bruises despite crashing into rocks on his way down before landing on the sand.
The daredevil said he thought he was going to die when his parachute got twisted on his way down.
Matthew, of Lichfield, Staffordshire, filmed the jump at Lake Garda, Italy, using a camera attached to his helmet.
He has carried out more than 180 basejumps at locations around the world and all of them had previously been successful.
At the end of the video the daredevil can be seen lying on the ground appearing shocked but conscious and not seriously hurt. His parachute is only partially opened.
He had minor injuries to his ankles and knees as well as a bloodied nose.
Matthew was travelling the world and taking part in extreme sports but flew back to Britain after this jump went wrong.
He was in hospital for around seven hours for tests but was swiftly discharged.
Matthew, who took up the sport after completing over 700 sky dives, recalled the horrifying moment he thought he was going to die.
He said: ‘I prepared for the jump, everything felt really good. Then I performed a “track”, which means you are flying in a forwards direction.
‘Everything was going fine and then I pulled the parachute. The problem was the deployment was really slow, it comes down to simple bad luck, nothing else, the conditions were fine, the parachute twisted and when it inflated it was facing backwards.
‘Due to the twists I couldn’t control it, I did the best I could with the situation and tried to avoid the cliff but I didn’t have the time or the space to avoid the impact.
‘When I impacted the first time I started spinning which made the situation worse, the parachute twisted even more before going into a dive and then spiralled towards the ground while I was smashing against the cliff.
‘I was trying to think about what to do, but all I could think about was trying to stay alive, I knew the final impact was coming soon and I knew if I hit the floor at the speed I was travelling, I was in a whole lot of trouble.
‘I managed to hang off one side of the canape and get away from the cliff but couldn’t control it still, I didn’t know if I was going to hit the floor or go into the lake.
‘I thought both of my legs were broken so I knew I couldn’t go into the lake, plus, I can’t swim which made things even worse.’
He added: ‘All I was shouting was “give me something” it was like I was in a gladiator arena faced against ten guys and I was given just a spoon to fight with, I felt I was desperately fighting to stay alive.
‘I was trying everything I could to get some kind of control, then I looked down and saw around ten spikes which I believe were used to hang up wet suits.