Lucas Oliver

At the time of the incident Lucas had around 370 skydives and around 70-80 BASE jumps. The BASE jumps were all within the last 8 months.
His final jump took place around 4:30 Sunday afternoon.
Winds that afternoon were around 15-20kts slightly cross wind from right to left of the exit point.
This was not the first jump that day, Lucas was on the ground observing the first jumps deciding if he was comfortable jumping in the conditions.
He had done a few gainers from this object in the past, all very controlled and well executed.

The tower in question has 2 exit points where the guyed wires attach, one at 340ish ft and the lower one at 270ft approx.
The attachment points overhang the tower around 1.5-2m and provide a nice platform to exit.
The jump was a 2 way, Lucas was exiting from the lower platform performing a stowed gainer, the jumper on the higher platform was doing a go & throw.

On this jump he had a good exit and the rotation of his gainer was perfect.
On this attempt though he began his deployment sequence too early, a bit past a horizontal back to earth position.
At this point rather than deploy the PC he extracted it from the BOC but held onto it.
We are not sure of the reason for this, I have never seen him do this previously on any of his base jumps or all the skydives we have done together.

He only held onto the PC for a split second but within this time the bridle extracted from the BOC/PC to full stretch behind him, it was at this point with the rotation of the gainer that his foot rotated through the bridle. He released the PC but it was already entangled around his foot.

He went for the risers but quickly realized that the PC was snagged and tried to free it. Either the kicking or PC drag extracted the canopy but it became entangled around his leg.
He impacted with no canopy inflation and died instantly. Another jumper was with him seconds after impact to help, checking vitals but there was nothing that could be done.
I believe if he had of released the PC as soon as it was extracted from the BOC he would of been fine, a head down deployment at worst.

Lucas was a very smart and skilled jumper. He was also one of my best friends, his enthusiasm, passion for life and positive traits were endless.
He will be greatly missed amongst a huge circle of friends both jumpers and non.

Still miss you every day buddy, it was a honor to call you my friend