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Updated Picture: Mythbusters’ Erik Gates Dies in Freak Accident (PHOTOS)
Erik Gates, a regular on the popular Discovery Channel show MythBusters, has died following a thirty-foot fall at a work site. He was only 47.
Gates owned a company called Gateco Electric and was working at a site on Sunday when he apparently fell through a skylight. It was reported that he was still alive and talking at the scene immediately after the fall, but later died of blunt force chest injuries.
Adding a sad twist to the tragedy, Gates’ brother Dirk Gates is president and CEO of Xirrus, Inc.- the company that owns the site where his brother was killed. “He was a good guy,” Steve DeGennaro, Xirrus Inc.’s co-founder and CFO, said in a statement on Monday. “He survived cancer, he jumps with parachutes, he base jumps. He’s an active guy who was used to taking precautions. This was a freak accident that shouldn’t have happened.”
Erik and Dirk Gates were active in rocketry and operated a website, Gates Brother Rocketry; it was their expertise that brought them to the attention of MythBusters. Erik Gates appeared on several episodes as the show’s “Amateur Rocket Expert.”
Gates is survived by his wife, Beth and three children – daughters Jessica and Ashley, and son David. Our thoughts go out to his family and friends.
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