A marathon BMX race that ended in tragedy, a horrific helicopter crash, and a lethal BASE jump — these X Games legends went to heart-pounding extremes, and tragically passed before their prime.
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00:00A marathon FMX race had ended in tragedy, a horrific helicopter crash, and a lethal
00:05base jump. These X-Games legends went to heart-pounding extremes and tragically passed before their
00:10prime.
00:11BMX rider Pat Casey, a veteran of the Vans team, was an absolute monster on two wheels.
00:16Casey was the very definition of an innovator, a man with an incredibly deep bag of tricks,
00:21twists, and flips. He was also an expert transition rider, meaning he virtually never failed to
00:26Turning pro at just 14, Casey promptly began attracting attention for his sublime skills,
00:31and at the X-Games, he medaled three times, taking bronze in the BMX Freestyle Park event
00:36in 2012, silver in 2013, and gold in 2021. But unfortunately, during a 2023 practice
00:42run, he lost his life.
00:44On June 7, NBC San Diego reported that Casey had been involved in an accident at Slay Ground
00:49Motocross Park in Ramona, California. Shockingly, he missed his landing while completing a jump
00:54on a motorcycle, landing askew and causing the bike to fall on top of him. Emergency
00:58responders arrived quickly, but were unable to help Casey, who died at the scene.
01:02In an Instagram post, the 29-year-old's wife, Chase, movingly eulogized her husband. She
01:07wrote,
01:08"...the world looked at you the way you looked at me. Our children are strong and I know
01:11that's because of you."
01:12South Lake Tahoe's Kyle Smain was seemingly born in a halfpipe. Whether on skis or a snowboard,
01:18he attacked them fearlessly. An X-Games regular, Smain took home a gold medal after winning
01:22the halfpipe event at the FIS Freestyle Ski and Snowboarding World Championships in 2015.
01:27In 2023, 31-year-old Smain was in Japan taking action shots for a tourism campaign when disaster
01:33struck in the form of every skier's worst nightmare — an avalanche.
01:37During a free ski with fellow pro skier Adam Yu, after the day's shooting had concluded,
01:41an Austrian skier who had hooked up with the pair triggered the slide. Speaking with Mountain
01:45Gazette, Yu said,
01:46"...we had no camera gear with us. We were going out for fun. We heard the crack. We
01:50realized it is a big one. We started running and then we got hit."
01:54Yu was buried several feet deep for about 25 minutes before rescuers responded, and
01:58he somehow walked away unscathed. Smain, however, was not so lucky. He, along with the skier
02:03who had triggered the avalanche, died at the scene.
02:0629-year-old Sarah Burke was one of the best freestyle skiers on the planet. She pioneered
02:10the Superpipe event, which is as hardcore as it sounds — a halfpipe up to 22 feet
02:15tall and 64 feet wide, with a length of at least 400 feet. The Superpipe can dominate
02:20the most talented of extreme skiers, but Burke dominated it instead.
02:24Not only did she take home four gold medals at the X Games, but she was also the owner
02:28of five World Cups and multiple World Championships. The year before her 2012 death, her gold medal
02:33in the Euro X Games came when she stuck a virtually unheard-of 540. Shockingly, her
02:38death came during a simple practice run in Utah.
02:41Burke tore her vertebral artery on the landing, causing severe bleeding, depriving her brain
02:45of oxygen, and causing her to go into cardiac arrest. She was airlifted to a Salt Lake City
02:50hospital, where she held on for nine days before succumbing to her injury.
02:53The freestyle skiing world has lost its pioneer. It's lost its Johnny Appleseed."
02:59Shane McConkie was a skiing legend, but even pushing the boundaries of that sport was not
03:03enough to quench his thirst for adrenaline. He was also a fearless rock climber and base
03:07jumper, and he was known to sometimes combine these pursuits in ways that would buckle the
03:11knees of the most fear-challenged athletes. He was a free-skiing pioneer, an international
03:16skiing champion, an X Games gold medalist, and the star of 26 skiing films that exposed
03:20the sport to an audience of millions. In fact, it was during the filming of his last movie
03:24that it all came to an end.
03:26During the 2009 filming of a ski base jump, which is precisely as dangerous as it sounds,
03:31McConkie's skis became entangled and failed to detach. This would have caused them to
03:35become entangled with his parachute, though Tahoe quarterly reported that McConkie did
03:39not panic. While airborne, he managed to resolve the ski issue, but he did not have
03:43time to pull his chute. The unfortunate equipment failure ended the life of a man revered for
03:47his dedication to his sport. He was 39 years old.
03:51Not many folks are more comfortable on a bike than Metal Militia FMX rider Jeff Ox Cargola
03:56was. He started riding at the tender age of 12, and by 16, he had turned pro. From 2001
04:01to 2010, he competed in the Moto X events at every single X Games, taking home a silver
04:06medal in the Best Trick category in 2005. He also dabbled in off-roading, racing superlight
04:11trucks in several events in later years. In 2011, he was participating in a combination
04:15of those two pursuits, an off-road 1,400-mile FMX race titled Rip to the Tip, which took
04:20place in Mexico. At some point during the competition, Cargola lost control of his bike
04:24and crashed. He was airlifted to a San Clemente hospital, but died of internal bleeding and
04:29a catastrophic head injury. He was only 27.
04:32Cargola's death was an added reminder that even the best extreme athletes put their lives
04:36on the line every time they compete. Speaking with ESPN, Jay Schweitzer, the director of
04:40a Metal Militia video featuring the young star, said,
04:43"...he was an all-or-nothing kind of guy, but he could also handle a bike better than
04:46just about anybody in the world. I can't even believe the news that he's gone. Just last
04:50week I was out shooting with him at Danimals and he was at the top of his game, riding
04:54like I've never seen him ride before."
04:56If Colin McRae was a rally car legend before 2006, it was at a rally event at that year's
05:01X Games that he became a rally car deity.
05:04Driving a Subaru WRX STI, McRae was coming around the track's final turn when he miscalculated
05:09a jump. The vehicle rolled until it somehow landed right back on its tires, and McRae
05:13cruised to a second-place finish without breaking a sweat. That finish was only a half-second
05:17behind winner Travis Pastrana, who was simply gobsmacked. After the race, he said,
05:22"...Dude, Colin McRae is straight up a god. This guy comes out here, I can't even believe
05:28he lost time!"
05:29Unfortunately, it was McRae's penchant for pushing vehicles to their absolute limits
05:34that proved to be his undoing. In 2007, he was piloting a helicopter that was also carrying
05:38his 5-year-old son, the child's 6-year-old friend, and 37-year-old friend Graham Duncan.
05:44McRae was flying too low and the helicopter crashed, killing all on board. A later inquiry
05:48would find his flying to be imprudent, as the BBC called it. McRae's family maintained
05:53that it was impossible to know what caused the crash, but it appears that the driver's
05:56hunger for daredevilry is what likely led to the tragedy.
06:00Australia is not exactly known for producing champion snowboarders, but Alex Chumpy Pullen
06:05was looking to change all that. Hooked on the sport since the age of 8, Pullen made
06:08his Winter X Games debut in 2008. In 2010, he represented his country at the Olympics,
06:13taking part in the Winter Games in Vancouver. He was a World Cup gold medal winner, X Game
06:18medalist, and three-time Olympian. One could make the argument that without him, Australian
06:22snowboarding would still be a footnote on the world stage.
06:25Unfortunately, his contributions to his beloved sport ended in 2020, as he passed away at
06:2932 after a spearfishing mishap. Snow Australia, the national organization for Australian snowsports,
06:35issued a statement calling Pullen a role model and a leader. His teammates uniformly chimed
06:39in on social media to agree. Fellow Olympian Jared Hughes wrote on Instagram,
06:43"...he truly paved the way for other snowboarders in Australia and will leave behind an incredible
06:47legacy. RIP Chumpy, it was an honor to be teammates and have raced alongside you."
06:53Then Block entered the world of sports as a marketing executive, helping to found DC
06:57Shoes in 1994. But after a decade or so of that grind, he decided he'd had enough of
07:01sitting on the sidelines, so he took up rally driving, which, it turned out, he was rather
07:05good at. In 2005, he was named Rookie of the Year on the U.S. rally circuit. Over the next
07:10eight years, he would pile up the accomplishments — three second-place U.S. finishes, five
07:14X Games medals, and a spot in the World Rally Championship, where he was the first American
07:19to ever compete. Sadly, Block passed away at 55 after a mishap involving a completely
07:24different kind of motor vehicle.
07:25While snowmobiling near his home in Park City, Utah, he was navigating a steep downhill slope
07:29when the vehicle upended and landed on top of him. He died at the scene.
07:33Hoonigan Racing Division, the rally company he co-founded, memorialized him in a statement.
07:38Ken was a visionary, a pioneer and an icon, and most importantly, a father and husband.
07:43He will be incredibly missed.
07:44Saying goodbye to a dear friend, a mentor, I mean, so much that Ken was to all of us
07:51and to Hoonigan.
07:52Hundreds of athletes have risked their lives in pursuit of X Games glory, but Caleb Moore,
07:56who was capable of performing feats of snowmobiling that few would even have the courage to try,
08:01made an attempt that resulted in tragedy. Just before his fateful run at the 2013 Winter
08:06X Games, he spoke to the press about the first time he ever stuck a backflip on an ATV.
08:10It was the most exciting moment of my life, and the most stressful, heart-pounding moment
08:13of my life, too. During the televised event that followed the interview, Moore crash-landed
08:18while attempting such a flip on a snowmobile. He was rushed to the hospital, but died the
08:22following morning from blunt force chest trauma. He was only 25.
08:26As a result of the incident, ESPN canceled all snowmobile freestyle events at X Games
08:31Tinia's the following month, and the best trick competitions were also nixed that year.
08:35Caleb's brother Colton continued on in his memory, winning the gold in snowmobile freestyle
08:40in 2014. Three years later, he suffered a spinal cord injury trying to become the first
08:44to land a double snowmobile flip in competition at the X Games, though he survived the accident.
08:49A regular X Games competitor and extreme skier, C.R. Johnson nearly died while filming jumps
08:54at a ski resort in Utah in 2005 after colliding with another skier. That incident left him
08:59hospitalized and in a coma for 10 days. Regardless, it did nothing to dampen his love of the sport,
09:04even throughout a tough and painful recovery.
09:06In 2010, he was making his way back professionally. He had just placed third in an event in France.
09:11But while he was training at his childhood stomping grounds in California's Squall Valley,
09:15tragedy struck.
09:16Summit Daily reported that Johnson was attempting to negotiate a steep chute laden with rocks
09:21when he fell, spun around, and hit the back of his head. He was, of course, wearing a
09:25helmet, but it was not enough to protect him from a blow of such velocity. The 26-year-old
09:29died on the slope due to blunt force head trauma. Jim Rogers of the Squall Valley Ski
09:33Patrol said,
09:34This is a man of very, very strong skiing talent. This young man had been a fixture
09:38here at Squall Valley for years. He grew up at Squall Valley.
09:41"...one of the most naturally talented bike riders ever to touch a bike in the history
09:46of two wheels."
09:47Fourteen-time X Games gold medalist Dave Mirra wasn't just a BMX icon. He virtually defined
09:52his sport, winning championships, setting records, and blazing trails, both literal
09:56and figurative. He was a two-time Olympian, taking home a silver medal in the 1996 Games
10:01in Atlanta, and he was even a television personality, hosting the reality series Real
10:05World Road Rules Challenge from 2004 to 2005. He was simply a giant of extreme sports, but
10:11behind the scenes, he was quietly struggling with a terrible health issue.
10:14Mirra suffered a fractured skull in a car accident when he was 19. This, combined with
10:19the many concussions he sustained over the course of his BMX career, is thought to have
10:23contributed to his chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a degenerative brain disorder common to football
10:28players. The diagnosis was confirmed after Mirra's death. In 2016, at the age of 41,
10:33he died by suicide after years of dealing with depression and memory loss caused by
10:37his condition.
10:38If you or anyone you know is having suicidal thoughts, please call the National Suicide
10:43Prevention Lifeline at 988-833-8255 or call 1-800-273-TALK.