‘She was clever’

Last summer when Brooke Baum and her family went to their cabin in Big Bear a bat flew in.

A debate ensued about whether you needed to get rabies shots after encountering a bat. So Baum whipped out her iPhone, went browsing and found out that, indeed, rabies shots are a must because the critters can bite you while you’re sleeping and you won’t even know it, Brooke’s mother, Jude Lipps said.

That’s how Baum was. Fearless. Quick-thinking. Responsible.

“She was just very quick, very clever. Other people are panicking but she got out her phone to see what we needed to do. That’s how she was,” Lipps said, recalling her daughter who died Dec. 26 during a skydiving accident near Perris Valley Airport.

The 33-year-old Newport Beach woman started jumping from airplanes three years ago after a boyfriend took her skydiving for her 30th birthday, Lipps said.

“It wasn’t my choice, but she definitely had a passion for it and she was very confident, very stable, very industrious and very reliable,” Lipps said.

Baum even convinced her mother to try it the summer before last.

“I could see how it could be addictive,” Lipps said. “I did a sky dive with her and there was such a great deal of people there who were nice and there was lots of activity.”

Baum developed many important friendships with her fellow skydivers and even chose to make Thanksgiving dinner for many of the out-of-towners who didn’t have family to spend the holiday with. And she had some of those friends over for Christmas dinner with the family this year as well.

Lipps remembered her daughter as someone who never seemed to lose her cool. Baum, who was active in her 4H club, once had to corral a 200-pound pig with her friends so they could take it to market.

“So here they were, her two friends from high school, and they were raising a pig one year — they were chasing this pig around to get it in the truck.”

Baum made sure they got the job done.

“Nothing was too tough,” Lipps said.

Her mother also remembered a spirited race horse Baum was fond of as a child.

“There was this one retired race horse that only liked to go in one direction and in one speed — and that was fast! We’d hear harrowing tales about her being thrown off that horse more than one time,” Lipps said.

Baum was also an avid reader who loved mysteries, romance and fantasy novels.

“She also researched a lot. She spent a lot of time on the computer and was totally wired into everything,” Lipps said. “A couple of months ago we were in D.C. walking down the big mall by the Smithsonian. We were there with my husband, who is a PhD engineer and another family member who has a PhD in math. We came across a statue on the mall and we all recognized the name, but we couldn’t quite remember why they were notable. Without wasting any time she got her iPhone out and told us everything about it. Here are these very smart guys and they didn’t think to take their iPhones out, but she did.”

She also loved the theater and enjoyed seeing shows at the Orange County Performing Arts Center with her mother. She also enjoyed country music and traveling.

Baum was single and had recently broke up with a boyfriend but was very happy.

She worked for an orthopedic surgeon in Fountain Valley.

She studied kinesiology as an undergraduate at Humboldt State University and “worked for a few years as an athletic trainer, but when she realized that wasn’t a very lucrative job she went back to school [to USC] and became a physician’s assistant.”

She is survived by her mother and step-father, Ben Lipps, her father and step-mother, Lawrence and Margie Baum, her sisters, Kristen Drake, Lauren Arendt and Julie Kim, brothers Lawrence Baum Jr. and Brian Lipps.

A memorial service will be at 10:30 a.m. today at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 2150 Bonita Canyon Drive, Newport Beach. Instead of flowers, donations can be sent to the Humane Society through HSUS.org.

PAUL ANDERSON is the city editor for the Daily Pilot. He may be reached at (714) 966-4633 or [email protected].