Urban explorer falls to death full#

“I knew there were no other girls doing it and I wasn’t sure if people would refuse to meet up with me because I’m a girl.” She’d never mention her gender until they encountered each other in person. Over the years, Slippn met up with about 50 urban explorers around Australia and in New York – the means of connection is almost always Instagram. When you’re sitting on the edge of a building knowing that you could fall or die instantly, the adrenaline is almost addictive. “It got to the point towards reaching 18 where I’d done every train tunnel in Sydney and most buildings.” They sought out taller buildings to scale: offices, hotels, even banks. At 16, she found a group of explorers who would become her best friends, and the same group would go exploring every weekend. At 15, she turned to train tunnels, venturing deeper into the city’s subterranean networks. Often people will label you ‘toy’, which is the worst insult to any new explorer.”Īt 13 and 14, she was exploring abandoned buildings and making her way onto rooftops. If you’re new to the exploring scene, it’s pretty evident in your photos and the places you go. She knew she was an outsider in an exclusive and sometimes hostile subculture. Most of those early exploits were solo affairs.

Urban explorer falls to death full#

It took me a full year of trying to finesse my way into tricking them to be able to get to the city and start doing roofs.” “I had quite strict parents so I wasn’t allowed to go to the city or anything like that.

Slippn’s love of urban exploration came to an end when she fell six storeys. She knew she wanted to follow in the footsteps of these photographers, but her first obstacle was getting out of the house. Slippn was 12 when images of rooftops and other urban sites first caught her eye on Instagram. “Now as an adult, I understand there’s risks when I drive every day, or I could get hit by a truck, but when you’re sitting on the edge of a building knowing the fact that you could fall or die instantly, the adrenaline is almost addictive. “It’s a weird thing growing up as a teenager and spending every Friday and Saturday night on the edge of death, where you know you could die at any instant,” she says.

She goes by the name Slippn, and back then she was part of the tiny subculture known as urban explorers, who make their way into abandoned or off-limits sites, often documenting their travels through striking and evocative photographs. The bloodied girl confessed: “six storeys”. As they were nearing emergency, the mother asked exactly how far the tumble had been. Shortly after sunset on October 1, 2018, a Sydney teenager called her mum and told her she’d had a bad fall. Normal text size Larger text size Very large text size