GLENWOOD SPRINGS — Ted Davenport was released from St. Mary’s Hospital in Grand Junction on Thursday after recuperating from a BASE jumping accident Wednesday morning in which he hit the ground.
He was on his way home to Aspen by the afternoon.
Davenport, 28, jumped from a spot on Anvil Points that he calls “The W Hotel.” The professional BASE jumper and freeskier said contrary to what authorities claimed on Wednesday — that Davenport’s parachute only partially opened — he was able to fully deploy the parachute before impact.
“The issue was that I was very close to the ground after I opened and released my steering toggles,” Davenport said.
He and two friends had jumped at the same time from the 817-foot cliff in close proximity to one another.
Davenport said he performed an aerial maneuver and that when he pulled out of it, he was descending in a “head low” position, where his body is vertical and his head is toward the ground.
“If I would have opened my parachute in that body position, I would have most certainly opened it with line twists and in an off-heading opening facing the wall,” he explained, “which would have been far more dangerous.”
He, instead, continued to freefall and flipped his body over into a flat and stable body position, horizontal to the ground, then deployed his parachute.
“My parachute opened 100 percent, on heading, perfectly,” he said.
He was just too close to the ground.
Read what Davenport’s friends did next and how he was rescued at .
