Very sad to have learnt of Dickinson's death. He died doing what he loved. RIP. ...
From Ottawa Sun:
Friends and colleagues of a Canadian adventurer who died in China are flooding social media with glowing tributes, loving remembrances and some small measure of resignation at the inevitability of his demise.
The body of 28-year-old Graham Dickinson was found last Thursday on a cliff in the Tianmen Mountain National Forest Park in the central province of Hunan.
The day before, he posted a picture of the mountain on his Facebook page, accompanied by a smiling emoji and the description “feeling like he is dreaming.”
Dickinson was regarded as one of the best in the world at a sport called wingsuiting, in which athletes jump from high places and glide to the ground with the aid of aerodynamic body suits that make their wearers look a little like flying squirrels.
There have been numerous fatalities of wingsuit flying - almost since the inception of the sport but there were 2 that stood out in our minds because they occurred in Canada:
- On May 9, 2007 - American adventurer and TV personality Jimmy Hall, age 41, was on an expedition to Baffin Island in northern Canada. After several days of successful jumps, Hall attempted a wingsuit flight through a canyon. He failed to clear a ledge, and impacted the cliff.
- And back on June 26 of last year (2016), Gary Kremer, 30-year-old American basejumper and former U.S. Marine, died while wingsuit flying with friends in Canada.
