This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2015, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
A Salt Lake City man died after trying a double backflip off "King Kong," a 60-foot cliff at Causey Reservoir.
Searchers found Matt Heffernan's body about 11 a.m. Saturday, hours after he dived into the water and never resurfaced, said Weber County sheriff's Lt. Brandon Toll. Heffernan was 23.
Heffernan and two friends had spent the day at the remote Weber County lake floating on tubes, when they decided to go cliff diving in Skull Crack Canyon. The canyon branches off from the lake's southwest corner, where all of the "fingers" of the lake meet, Toll said.
That center is where people typically go cliff diving. But "King Kong," a cliff of dark rock that appears to have a face in it, is about a third of a mile into Skull Crack Canyon and a diving spot that Toll never heard of before.
Though they had been wearing life vests while they were tubing, Heffernan and his friends took them off when they started diving. Heffernan was on his fifth jump when he failed to complete the double backflip, Toll said. His friends said he hit the water "pretty hard" and never resurfaced.
"They jumped in and tried to find him," Toll said. Bystanders, including off-duty firefighters, saw what had happened and "realized there was something going wrong."
But because of the reservoir's remote spot in the forested mountains east of Ogden, it would have taken them about 30 minutes to find help.
Divers and emergency responders in a boat and four kayaks searched until 11 p.m. Friday. After they resumed the search 8 a.m. Saturday with the aid of three boats, two jet skis and three kayaks, divers found Heffernan 50 feet below the surface.
Heffernan was originally from Cleveland, Ohio. He had moved to Utah six years ago and attended the University of Utah.
Toll described Heffernan and his friends as "adrenaline junkies" who spend a lot of time in the mountains.
Weber County requires that anyone recreating at Causey Reservoir to wear a life vest, regardless of the activity.
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