Uli Emanuele

Uli Emanuele (* 23 October 1985 in South Tyrol; † 17 August 2016 in Lauterbrunnen Valley) was a professional Italian base jumper.

Life

Emanuele was born in Italy and learnt the profession of printer there, but later moved to Switzerland and worked as a dishwasher at a mountain inn, as he could fly home to the valley from there at the end of the day.He started base jumping at the age of 21 and has been doing the sport full-time since April 2015 under the sponsorship of GoPro.

In July 2015, Emanuele became famous for jumping through a 2-metre narrow hole in a rock in the Lauterbrunnen Valley near the Rottal Glacier, which he recorded with a helmet camera and posted online. The video quickly received over seven million clicks on YouTube and Emanuele made several appearances, including on Markus Lanz.

Emanuele died on 17 August 2016 at the age of 30 during a base jump in the Lauterbrunnen Valley in the Swiss Alps.

Just the day before the crash, the 30-year-old extreme athlete posted a photo on his Facebook page showing him wearing a helmet, wingsuit and cameras. He had been in Switzerland for a few days to shoot a video for the GoPro company.

Description of the last seconds

According to media reports, Emanuele wanted to film another video in the Lauterbrunnen Valley in Switzerland. On Wednesday afternoon, a terrible accident occurred: Emanuele had problems on a right-hand bend and crashed into a rock at full speed. He crashed immediately. Eyewitnesses immediately alerted the emergency services, but all help came too late. 

More than 40 other extreme athletes had already had accidents in the valley before him. He completed more than 2,000 base jumps in his career.