SAN DIEGO (NEWS 8) - A man wearing a parachute jumped from a crane in the East Village early Friday morning and was uninjured when he landed on a street several hundred feet below, police said.
Dispatchers received reports shortly before 12:45 a.m. of a man climbing a crane at a building located on 15th Street and J Street, San Diego police Sgt. Michael Stirk said.
Officers arrived and a police helicopter hovered at the scene as officers used a loudspeaker to tell the man not to jump, Stirk said. The man ignored orders and proceeded to jump from the crane, which is located at least 480 feet above the street.
After he landed in the middle of the 1500 block of Market Street, the unidentified man was a taken to a hospital for a medical issue unrelated to his contact with police, Stirk said.
"It was a pre-existing condition," Stirk said.
Police eventually released the man and gave him a citation because base jumping is not considered a serious crime. The man was cited for trespassing and was released, Stirk said.
Matt Days is an experienced skydiver in San Diego. He said a lot sky divers move on to base jumping when, after thousands of jumps, the thrill starts to fade.
"Some base objects are as low as 150-feet, where as skydiving is from 5,000 to 13,000-feet. There is a little bit more precision to it [base jumping]. Sometimes the winds are not good. A lot of base jumping is making the right decisions, and since people are human they error - suffer consequences, injury, death," he said.
The man’s identity is unknown.