Today Bissonnette wants more.

His first jumps as a paraplegic were made without a wheelchair. But if he makes it off all four objects strapped into the chair, he’ll be first at something new, again.

That goal has brought him to the Wisma Sanyan, the tallest building in East Malaysia, on the island formerly called Borneo. He’s crossed off the bridge already, making the leap in his chair off bridges in China and West Virginia.

A building is much more difficult because a jumper has to avoid hitting it on the way down.

When Bissonnette applied to join the 2013 Malaysian BASE jumping event, organizer Gary Cunningham, wasn’t thrilled. He knows just how dangerous this sport can be without adding a wheelchair to the mix. Two participants last year died jumping after the event. And two others, registered for this year, died before they could even get here.

“This is borderline for me,” Cunningham says of Bissonnette’s wheelchair jumping.

But he asked around and was told, “If anyone can do it, it’s him.”

After this jump, he plans to pursue the two remaining objects. Finding a cliff where he can lay down a plywood ramp shouldn’t be too hard. Finding an antenna he can sneak up in the middle of the night with his wheelchair and the makings of a ramp trailing behind him will be a little more of a challenge.

For the longest time, Bissonnette was sure he would die jumping. Now he’s not so sure. This is, to some degree, a numbers game. In the nine years since his ill-fated 1,100th leap into the sky, he’s done only 35.

The accident has made him more cautious. He takes more time to prepare and doesn’t jump if everything doesn’t feel just right.

Still, he remains obsessed. “If I could afford to go to all the jumps, I would most likely still be going as hard as I always did.”

The big international jumps, with elevators to the top, would be happy to have him, as he always draws a crowd. But he can’t afford to get there without a sponsor.

His income from disability cheques is less than a quarter of what he earned as a tiler. He’s in Malaysia only because his good friend and fellow jumper Gareth Parry gave him the plane ticket.

His dream jump, though, is in Toronto. He wants to leap off the CN Tower and land in the Rogers Centre on the pitcher’s mound, baseball in hand, and throw the season’s opening pitch. But he would need acceptance more than money to get the chance; BASE jumping is practically illegal in the city.

Bissonnette knows many people see him as a reckless thrill seeker who doesn’t value the second chance he’s been given. “Just because I’m in a chair it doesn’t change who I am as a person,” he says. “Which means I’m still going to go out there and push boundaries and do things that a lot of other people won’t do.”

That includes jumping off a building in Malaysia.

The other jumpers have been leaping from the building repeatedly for the past two days, getting in as many as possible. But when Bissonnette does last-minute preparation for his jump, bolting his shoes to his chair, word spreads quickly and the others start to loiter nearby. No one wants to miss this.

“Every time he goes to a new object, he’s the world record holder,” says Gabriel Hubert, a welder from Edmonton, Alta., and one of the 35 from 14 countries taking part in this event. “He’s reinventing what’s possible in BASE jumping.”

The Wisma Sanyan may be the tallest building in this part of Malaysia, but it’s still only 33 storeys high. That means Bissonnette has no time for anything to go wrong.

To make his parachute opens as fast as possible, he’s asked American jumper Sean Chuma to help. The 34-year-old is renowned in the sport for his spectacular aerial flips off the Perrine Bridge, where Bissonnette was paralyzed.

Chuma will perform a “pilot chute assist.” The pilot chute is the small parachute that, tethered to the main one, opens it. Chuma will hold the pilot chute as Bissonnette jumps.

Because Bissonnette needs to get momentum so he doesn’t hit the building on his way down, Chuma first has to run behind Bissonnette as he rolls to the edge. Then, at the edge, without falling over himself, he needs to stop and hold the pilot chute until he feels the tug of the main parachute opening.

If he lets go too early, the pilot chute won’t do its job, and if he holds too tight, it could tear right off.

As Bissonnette rolls over the edge, he finds himself looking at the sky a little more than expected. He had always planned to do a wheelie on the exit but he hadn’t factored in the weight of the parachute on his back, which increased the wheelie effect.

A second later, his parachute is pulled out of its pack by the pilot chute. His red-and-white canopy — the same one that crashed into the Snake River 14 years ago — opens perfectly.

He makes two wide, graceful arcs around the landing area. They burn off speed before landing but also allow him to luxuriate in the joy of flying again.

The other jumpers don’t notice what he’s doing. One after the other in rapid fire, they jump, too. They all want to get to the bottom to celebrate.

Even in a wheelchair, Bissonnette’s ability to fly is better than most others’ here.

But landing is tricky. He can’t run out or roll on a bad landing. When his wheelchair, which has no suspension, hits the ground, it hits hard.

Bissonnette’s worry is that the smaller front wheels will dig into the grass in the landing area and spit him forward into a face plant. That happened on his bridge jumps.

He touches down in a slight wheelie position, and the chair rolls forward a few feet before coming to a stop.

He throws his arms into the air in triumph and then, almost in slow motion, the weight of his arms tips the chair backwards and he falls.

Lying on his back in the grass, staring at the sky, he shouts for joy.