By Iwan Stone and Elena Salvoni and Summer Goodkind
02:06 29 Jan 2024, updated 02:14 29 Jan 2024
The brother of a British base jumper has revealed the ‘simple’ mistake that caused him to fall to his death from a tower block in Thailand. Nathy Odinson, 33, from Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, climbed to the top of the 29th floor in an apartment building in the coastal resort of Pattaya on Saturday night before leaping to his death. His brother, Ed Harrison, 39, stated that video footage of the jumper’s last moments shows that his mini pilot chute was caught in his harness, making it impossible to deploy. Despite his significant experience, having undertaken ‘5,000 jumps around the world’, he made the fatal error ‘without realising’ and leapt to his death. Harrison told The Sun that his sibling ‘will be missed by so many… He was fun-loving and joyful and great with kids. He was a hero to my three.’
In a final image posted on the jumper’s Instagram, Mr. Odinson can be seen angled forwards with his arms pointed out behind him as he whips through the air in a green helmet. Horrifying footage shows him counting down ‘three, two, one, see ya’ before leaping into the night sky. He is then sent into a terrifying death spiral with the small parachute flailing through the air. Wearing vans for the audacious stunt, he skims a dusty floor as he is suspended beneath a green parachute. He captioned the post with a run of hashtags – including ‘extremesports’, ‘adrenaline junkie’, ‘skydiveuk’, ‘chinesetiktok’ and ‘thaiskyadventures’.
In the shocking video, Mr. Odinson can then be heard landing in a tree before hitting the ground with a sickening thud. Paramedics pronounced him dead at the scene. Tourist police in Pattaya were alerted to the accident at 7.30pm and rushed to the condo building to find Odinson’s body on the ground. A round blue parachute was found on his body and was not fully deployed. Traumatised security guard Kanet Chansong, 33, said: ‘I heard the sound of the tree and I thought it was a fallen branch hitting the ground.’
In the video, Mr. Odinson asks the person recording him from the other side of a security wall if his helmet camera has the red light flashing to indicate it is recording. When he realizes it was not recording, Nathy removes his helmet and presses the button before briefly checking his parachute. His friend, a Thai local, exclaimed ‘oh f***’ when he heard Mr. Odinson hit the ground. The emergency services were called shortly after. Staff at the Lumpini Ville Naklua condo checked CCTV and saw that Mr. Odinson and a friend had parked outside then waited for a time when it was quiet before sneaking into the building.
They then headed onto the roof of the building, with Mr. Odison clambering over a small concrete wall on the roof of the building in order to reach the edge. The security guard said that he had jumped from the building several times before, which posed a risk for pedestrians walking below. He added: ‘They were making video content for social media. They had done this before and they knew it was not allowed.’
Police have informed the British Embassy in Bangkok, which is contacting Mr. Odinson’s relatives in the United Kingdom.
