Service member dies after falling from Alamodome rafters in skills demo before UTSA game – San Antonio Express-News

Service member dies after falling from Alamodome rafters in skills demo before UTSA game  San Antonio Express-News

To gasps from the crowd, a military service member fell to his death from the Alamodome rafters Saturday night during a rappelling demonstration before a football game between UTSA and Navy. The 170-foot vertical descent by fatigue-clad Air Force personnel was part of a pregame ceremony at the annual Salute to Armed Forces and Veterans game. The airman, who was from Detachment 2 of the Air Force's 6th Combat Training Squadron, plunged to the ground during a rope-line descent before 23,000 spectators. Emergency responders carried him from the field on a stretcher and to a waiting ambulance outside the Alamodome. Hours later, the Air Force said the airman had died at a San Antonio hospital.

"The incident is under investigation," a spokesperson for Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada, the training squadron's home, told the San Antonio Express-News early Sunday morning. "More information will be released as it becomes available." The airman was not identified, nor was the hospital where he died. In all, four members of the Air Force detachment were set to rappel to the field from the ceiling of the cavernous Alamodome before the pregame coin toss. About halfway through the descent, one of the four accelerated rapidly, crashing to the turf. UTSA staff formed a semicircle around the motionless figure for about 10 minutes as medical