Waterloo resident Tim Sumpter, 45, lives to tell the tale of a BASE jump gone wrong last summer.

Sumpter suffered several broken bones, including a broken pelvis, and was in a coma for 17 days after falling 486 feet off a bridge at 100 miles per hour into Idaho’s Snake River when his parachute failed to open.

There was only about five feet of water down below.

Sumpter was airlifted to St. Alphonsus Regional Medical Center in Boise, where he was listed in critical condition at the time.

Following months of rehabilitation and recovery, Sumpter recently returned to work at Jet Aviation in St. Louis.

During an interview that appeared last week on KDSK Channel 5 in St. Louis, Sumpter said that when he came out of the coma, he said two things: “I told my wife that I loved her, and I said I’ll never jump again.”

BASE jumping is a popular sport in southern Idaho, where participants jump off the Perrine Bridge using a parachute to break their fall.

Find this and other news stories in the Jan. 29 edition of the Republic-Times newspaper on stands now.